Emancipation at the Crossroads Between the ‘Woman Question’ and the ‘National Question’

Among the guiding preoccupations of postcommunist Latvia and its east European neighbors is the desire to be “normal.” A unifying notion in the period of opposition to Soviet communism, “normality” became a site of political contestation after the restoration of independence in Latvia. The fields of political and social life have been dominated by two competing narratives of normality: temporal normality, a restorationist narrative that elevates the experiences and institutions of independent interwar Latvia as a model for postcommunist change, and spatial normality, which takes the western (European) road of capitalist modernity as a map for the future. Although frequently at odds with one another in the field of political life, the temporal and spatial narratives share a nation-centered orientation that both reinforces and, arguably, expands women's subjugated status in society and submerges the “woman question” beneath the "national question." That is to say that although women as members of the body of the citizenry share in the benefits that accrue to this group in the forms of free speech, voting rights, and the right to own property, women as women have not benefited and, in fact, have suffered the consequences of the dual trends of commodification and domestication that have accompanied, respectively, the push toward economic modernity and the elevation of tradition in social life.

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The Woman Question in Europe

10.1017/cbo9781316274361 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Frances Power Cobbe

Keyword(s):

Woman Question

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"Education and the 'woman question'": Erratum.

Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne ◽

10.1037/h0092481 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 39 (1-2) ◽

pp. 164-164

Author(s):

Sandra W. Pyke

Keyword(s):

Woman Question

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Multiculturalism

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474427234.003.0010 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Nasar Meer

Keyword(s):

National Identity ◽

Race Relations ◽

National Identities ◽

Policy Debate ◽

Prominent Feature ◽

Religious Minorities ◽

The Core ◽

National Question ◽

Multicultural Citizenship ◽

Future Status

The purpose of this chapter is to locate the discussion about Muslims in Scotland in relation to questions of national identity and multicultural citizenship. While the former has certainly been a prominent feature of public and policy debate, the latter has largely been overshadowed by constitutional questions raised by devolution and the referenda on independence. This means that, while we have undoubtedly progressed since MacEwen (1980) characterised the treatment of ‘race-relations’ in Scotland as a matter either of ‘ignorance or apathy’, the issue of where ethnic, racial and religious minorities rest in the contemporary landscape remains unsettled. One of the core arguments of this chapter is that these issues are all interrelated, and that the present and future status of Muslims in Scotland is tied up with wider debates about the ‘national question’. Hitherto, however, study of national identity in Scotland has often (though not always) been discussed in relation to the national identities of England, Wales and Britain as a whole.

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The USSR Experience in Solving the National Question and the Liberated Countries of the East

Asian Survey ◽

10.1525/as.1974.14.3.01p0434z ◽

1974 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 289-306

Author(s):

Gulam Muradov

Keyword(s):

National Question

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The national question, identity and the crisis in South Sudan

Commonwealth Youth and Development ◽

10.25159/1727-7140/3298 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Dylan Yanano Mangani ◽

Richard Rachidi Molapo

Keyword(s):

Political Identity ◽

South Sudan ◽

Nation Building ◽

Political Control ◽

Social Patterns ◽

Political Landscape ◽

Liberation Movement ◽

Nation States ◽

National Question ◽

The Government

The crisis in South Sudan that broke out on the 15th of December 2013 has been the gravest political debacle in the five years of the country’s independence. This crisis typifies the general political and social patterns of post-independence politics of nation-states that are borne out of armed struggles in Africa. Not only does the crisis expose a reluctance by the nationalist leaders to continue with nation-building initiatives, the situation suggests the struggle for political control at the echelons of power within the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement. This struggle has been marred by the manufacturing of political identity and political demonization that seem to illuminate the current political landscape in South Sudan. Be that as it may, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) hurriedly intervened to find a lasting solution however supportive of the government of President Salva Kirr and this has suggested interest based motives on the part of the regional body and has since exacerbated an already fragile situation. As such, this article uses the Fanonian discourse of post-independence politics in Africa to expose the fact that the SPLM has degenerated into lethargy and this is at the heart of the crisis.

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The problem of language identity in Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s novel I want! in contemporary sociocultural context

A day in the calendar. Celebrations and memorial days as an instrument of national consolidation in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century - Central-European Studies ◽

10.31168/2619-0877.2019.2.9 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2019 (2 (11)) ◽

pp. 211-227

Author(s):

Ekaterina V. Baydalova ◽

Keyword(s):

National Identity ◽

Russian Literature ◽

The Novel ◽

Sociocultural Context ◽

Main Character ◽

Life Goal ◽

Language Identity ◽

National Question ◽

In The Beginning ◽

Ukrainian Society

The novel by Volodymyr Vynnychenko I want! (1915) was, on one hand, his literary answer to the discussion on the national question in Ukrainian society, and, on the other, it was his reaction to the accusations of him being a renegade resulting from his shift towards Russian literature. In 1907-1908, after the publication of his dramas and novels which were impregnated with the idea of “being honest with oneself” (it implied that all thoughts, feelings, and acts were to be in harmony), his works could be more easily published in Russian than in Ukrainian. This situation was taken by his compatriots as a betrayal against his native language and the national cause. In the novel I want! the problem of language identity is directly linked with national identity. In the beginning of the novel the main character, poet Andrey Halepa, despite being ethnic Ukrainian, spoke, thought, and wrote poems in Russian, and consequently his personality was ruined and his actions lacked motivation. It seems that after his unsuccessful suicide attempt and under the influence of a “conscious” Ukrainian, Halepa got in touch with his national identity and developed a life goal (the “revival” of the Ukrainian nation and the building of a free-labour enterprise). However, in the novel, national identity turns out to be incomplete without language identity. Halepa spoke Ukrainian with mistakes, had difficulty choosing suitable words, and discovered with surprise the meaning of some Ukrainian words from his former Russian friends. The open finale emphasises the irony of the discourse around a fast national “revival” without struggle and effort, and which only required someone’s will.

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