scholarly journals Seeing the Bigger Picture: Conspiratorial Revisions of World War II History in Recent Russian Cinema

Slavic Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 441-464
Author(s):  
Boris Noordenbos

This article analyzes revisions of World War II history in recent Russian cinema and television, including the feature filmThe Match(Andrei Maliukov, 2012),Spy (Aleksei Andrianov, 2012), and the television seriesLiquidation(Sergei Ursuliak, 2007). All these productions rely on the logic of conspiracy theory for their reimaginations of war history: pivotal developments during the war or its aftermath are presented as the result of subterranean manipulations by enemies or intelligence services. Through a narrative and visual analysis, the article shows how these films and series use the notion of conspiracy to reformat the contexts of wartime events and to place them within a speculative “bigger picture.” In doing so, they infer that what we know about the past is merely a part or effect of larger, hidden designs. Finally, the article situates these findings within a wider “reconciliation with the Soviet” in Putin-era culture, which increasingly centers on the remembrance of World War II.

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 324-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylwia Szostak ◽  
Sabina Mihelj

This article has two main aims. First, it seeks to contribute to existing research on the mediation of post-communist memory by considering the Polish case and specifically by focusing on audience memories of an iconic television series produced in communist Poland, Four Tankmen and a Dog (TVP, 1966–1970), set during World War II. Second, the article pays particular attention to the generational stratification of audience memories, and thereby makes a contribution to recent literature that examines the links between generation and mediated remembering. The analysis draws on life-course interviews with viewers of two different generations, conducted in Poland in 2014. The results indicate that the ways in which Polish audiences remember communist-era programming, and specifically the extent to which they perceive such programming as propaganda, vary significantly with generation. We argue that these differences stem from generationally specific experiences in the past, which gave rise to distinct modes of engaging with the communist era and its heritage.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  

For almost 20 years after the end of World War II, many Japanese women were challenged by a dark secondary hyper pigmentation on their faces. The causation of this condition was unknown and incurable at the time. However this symptom became curable after a number of new cosmetic allergens were discovered through patch tests and as an aftermath, various cosmetics and soaps that eliminated all these allergens were put into production to be used exclusively for these patients. An international research project conducted by seven countries was set out to find out the new allergens and discover non-allergic cosmetic materials. Due to these efforts, two disastrous cosmetic primary sensitizers were banned and this helped to decrease allergic cosmetic dermatitis. Towards the end of the 20th century, the rate of positives among cosmetic sensitizers decreased to levels of 5% - 8% and have since maintained its rates into the 21th century. Currently, metal ions such as the likes of nickel have been identified as being the most common allergens found in cosmetics and cosmetic instruments. They often produce rosacea-like facial dermatitis and therefore allergen controlled soaps and cosmetics have been proved to be useful in recovering normal skin conditions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.


1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Reid

Since the end of World War II the study of Southeast Asia has changed unrecognizably. The often bitter end of colonialism caused a sharp break with older scholarly traditions, and their tendency to see Southeast Asia as a receptacle for external influences—first Indian, Persian, Islamic or Chinese, later European. The greatest gain over the past forty years has probably been a much increased sensitivity to the cultural distinctiveness of Southeast Asia both as a whole and in its parts. If there has been a loss, on the other hand, it has been the failure of economic history to advance beyond the work of the generation of Furnivall, van Leur, Schrieke and Boeke. Perhaps because economic factors were difficult to disentangle from external factors they were seen by very few Southeast Asianists as the major challenge.


1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-376
Author(s):  
Andrew Ludanyi

The fate of Hungarian minorities in East Central Europe has been one of the most neglected subjects in the Western scholarly world. For the past fifty years the subject—at least prior to the late 1980s—was taboo in the successor states (except Yugoslavia), while in Hungary itself relatively few scholars dared to publish anything about this issue till the early 1980s. In the West, it was just not faddish, since most East European and Russian Area studies centers at American, French and English universities tended to think of the territorial status quo as “politically correct.” The Hungarian minorities, on the other hand, were a frustrating reminder that indeed the Entente after World War I, and the Allies after World War II, made major mistakes and significantly contributed to the pain and anguish of the peoples living in this region of the “shatter zone.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-195
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M.F. Grasmeder

Abstract Why do modern states recruit legionnaires—foreigners who are neither citizens nor subjects of the country whose military they serve? Rather than exclusively enlist citizens for soldiers, for the past two centuries states have mobilized legionnaires to help wage offensives, project power abroad, and suppress dissent. A supply-and-demand argument explains why states recruit these troops, framing the choice to mobilize legionnaires as a function of political factors that constrain the government's leeway to recruit domestically and its perceptions about the territorial threats it faces externally. A multimethod approach evaluates these claims, first by examining an original dataset of legionnaire recruitment from 1815 to 2020, then by employing congruence tests across World War II participants, and finally by conducting a detailed review of a hard test case for the argument—Nazi Germany. The prevalence of states’ recruitment of legionnaires calls for a reevaluation of existing narratives about the development of modern militaries and provides new insights into how states balance among the competing imperatives of identity, norms, and security. Legionnaire recruitment also underscores the need to recalibrate existing methods of calculating net assessments and preparing for strategic surprise. Far from being bound to a state's citizenry or borders, the theory and evidence show how governments use legionnaires to buttress their military power and to engineer rapid changes in the quality and quantity of the soldiers that they field.


2009 ◽  
pp. 9-46
Author(s):  
Paul E. Stepansky

- The rise and fall of psychoanalytic book publishing in America is one sign of the progressive marginalization of psychoanalysis within American mental health care. The "glory era" of psychoanalytic book publishing, roughly the quarter century following the end of World War II, is described. This was the era when psychoanalyst-authors such as Karl Menninger, Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson, and Karen Horney published books of great commercial success. Cumulative sales data of noteworthy psychoanalytic books published in the United States over the past 70 years are reported, and document the continuous decline in sales since the 1970s. In accounting for the recent acceleration of this decline, Stepansky focuses on the internal fragmentation of a once cohesive profession into rival schools with sectarian features, each committed to a self-limited reading agenda. Stepansky discusses these issues from his vantage point as Managing Director of The Analytic Press from 1984-2006. [KEY WORDS: American psychoanalysis, publishing, books, fractionation, marginalization]


Author(s):  
Michaela Sibylová

The author has divided her article into two parts. The first part describes the status and research of aristocratic libraries in Slovakia. For a certain period of time, these libraries occupied an underappreciated place in the history of book culture in Slovakia. The socialist ideology of the ruling regime allowed their collections (with a few exceptions) to be merged with those of public libraries and archives. The author describes the events that affected these libraries during and particularly after the end of World War II and which had an adverse impact on the current disarrayed state and level of research. Over the past decades, there has been increased interest in the history of aristocratic libraries, as evidenced by multiple scientific conferences, exhibitions and publications. The second part of the article is devoted to a brief history of the best-known aristocratic libraries that were founded and operated in the territory of today’s Slovakia. From the times of humanism, there are the book collections of the Thurzó family and the Zay family, leading Austro-Hungarian noble families and the library of the bishop of Nitra, Zakariás Mossóczy. An example of a Baroque library is the Pálffy Library at Červený Kameň Castle. The Enlightenment period is represented by the Andrássy family libraries in the Betliar manor and the Apponyi family in Oponice. 


2005 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. CHRISTOPHER JESPERSEN

The frequent use of the Vietnam analogy to describe the situation in Iraq underscores the continuing relevance of Vietnam for American history. At the same time, the Vietnam analogy reinforces the tendency to see current events within the context of the past. Politicians and pundits latch onto analogies as handles for understanding the present, but in so doing, they obscure more complicated situations. The con�ict in Iraq is not Vietnam, Korea, or World War II, but this article considers all three in an effort to see how the past has shaped, and continues to affect, the world the United States now faces.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document