Prefaces in Soviet translations of Robert Burns’s poetry as ideological tools

Target ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Kaloh Vid
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Target System ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Lexical Analysis ◽  
Foreign Literature ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
And Function ◽  
Made In

Abstract This article focuses on the ideological content and function of the prefaces that accompany the translations of foreign literature made in the Soviet Union. The aim of the article is to demonstrate how these translations use paratexts to comply with the target system’s ideological constraints. It shows how the ways in which the Soviet authorities used paratexts to manipulate representations of the author of the source text and the text itself reflect the power structures within the target system. The empirical investigation draws on a close lexical analysis of ideologemes in two prefaces that accompanied Soviet translations of Robert Burns’s poetry.

De-Russification of Government as a Factor in the Disintegration of the USSR

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 362-398
Author(s):  
Boris Mironov
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Administrative Positions ◽  
Political Inequality ◽  
Government Administration ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Democratic Principle ◽  
Legislative Branch

Abstract In the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1990, the political inequality of the nationalities’ representation in institutions of governance was overcome, non-Russians’ participation in the power structures increased, and Russians’ role in administration correspondingly decreased. The increased non-Russian percentage in governance was mainly due to the introduction of the democratic principle in government formation, according to which ethnicities should participate in proportion to their number. By 1990 in the USSR overall, Russians had a slight majority in all power structures, corresponding roughly to their higher share in the country’s population. In the union republics, however, the situation was different. Only in the RSFSR did all peoples, Russian and non-Russian, participate in government administration in proportion to their numbers, following the democratic norm. Elsewhere, Russians were underrepresented and therefore discriminated against in all organs of power, including the legislative branch. Representatives of non-Russian titular nationalities, who on average filled two-thirds of all administrative positions, predominated in disproportion to their numbers. Given these representatives’ skill majority in legislative bodies, republican constitutions permitted them to adopt any laws and resolutions they desired, including laws on secession from the USSR; and the executive and judicial authorities, together with law enforcement, would undoubtedly support them. Thus, the structural prerequisites for disintegration were established. Thereafter, the fate of the Soviet Union depended on republican elites and the geopolitical environment, because of the Center’s purposeful national policy, aimed toward increasing non-Russian representation among administrative cadres and the accelerated modernization and developmental equalization of the republics.

scholarly journals Spatial Location and the State of Timber Industry Enterprises in the Soviet Union by the End of the First Five-Year Plan

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-515
Author(s):  
Ivan Zykin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Timber Industry ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
Industry Location ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Forested Areas ◽  
Wood Machining ◽  
First Time ◽  
Made In

In the period of New Economic Policy in the USSR industrialization issues became very topical. In timber industry complex, the solutions were related to the development of forested areas in Northeastern regions of the country as well as to the construction and reconstruction of enterprises. The article provides the first-time analysis of maps and forest industry location, based on the results of the First Five-Year Plan published in the atlas “The Industry in the USSR and the beginning of the Second Five-Year Plan“ and statistical collection materials ”Social Construction of the USSR”. The analysis was made in order to define the situation in the industry, the main directions of production as well as the regional specificities. Using the example of wood machining sphere the author presents the analysis of enterprise groups according to different criteria. The research resulted in conclusions about highest intensity of enterprise reconstruction and construction in timber sawing, in furniture industry and intra-sectoral combination. In timber industry, the majority of enterprises were small and middle companies, which greatly contributed to its development. Regional specificities of timber industry location included concentration of main facilities in northwestern, western and central parts of the country, in the Volga region and in Ural. However only several regions had developed wood machining and deep processing spheres, such as Leningrad oblast, the Gorky Krai, Belarusian and the Ukrainian Soviet Republics.

Political constraints on economic efficiency: a reconsideration of the American and Soviet economies

1981 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-158
Author(s):  
R.T. Maddock
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
High Growth ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Level Of Economic Development ◽  
Extensive Growth

The formulation and execution of economic policy towards the Soviet block has generally been based on the presumption by Western governments of the inevitable and demonstrable economic superiority of capitalist over communist systems. Expectations derived from theoretical analysis of the misallocation of economic resources that would obtain in an economy lacking a rational price system appear to be sustained by empirical investigation of the Soviet Union. The impossibility of ensuring consistent and optimal plans, the failure to meet demand in terms of both quantity and quality of consumer goods and the requirement of excessive inputs of factors and resources per unit of output in both industry and agriculture compared with the mixed economies have been well documented, and appear to be endemic in Eastern Europe. Although it is more difficult to make international comparisons of dynamic efficiency due to the lack of an appropriate conceptual framework, both theoretical and empirical analyses appear to sustain the conventional orthodoxy. Material balances planning, and in particular the system of factor rewards prevailing in the U.S.S.R., give rise to expectations of bias against technical progress. The most comprehensive investigation into the sources of technological progress in the Soviet Union shows that in the period 1945–65, only 11 per cent of the technologies then in use had been internally generated, the rest being imported from capitalist sources. It has been estimated that, the technology gap between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. may be between 10 and 25 years. The impressively high growth rates achieved by the Soviet Union in the 1950s and early 1960s, it is further claimed, are not evidence of the eventual dynamic superiority of the planned system, as Soviet economists insist, but are no more than a reflection of the low level of economic development which the Soviet economy had attained by the beginning of the period of the Five Year Plans. Once abundant and under-utilized factors of production were fully absorbed into the economy, the requirement of the extensive growth model for large inputs of labour and capital per unit of output would cause a deceleration of growth rates. Statistics for the 1970s appear to bear out the prediction.

Russian Organized Crime: Its History, Structure and Function

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Albini ◽  
R.E. Rogers ◽  
Victor Shabalin ◽  
Valery Kutushev ◽  
Vladimir Moiseev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Client Relationships ◽  
And Function

In analyzing Russian organized crime, the authors describe and classify the four major forms of organized crime: 1) political-social, 2) mercenary, 3) in-group, and 4) syndicated. Though the first three classifications of the aforementioned types of organized crime existed throughout Soviet history, it was the syndicated form that began to emerge in the late 1950's, expanding during the corrupt Breznev years (1964–82), exploding during perestroika, and reaching pandemic levels after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. The abrupt transformation of the Russian society from a centralized command economy to one driven by the forces of market capitalism created the socio-pathological conditions for the malignant spread of mercenary and especially syndicated organized crime. New criminals syndicates were created by an alliance of criminal gangs/groups and former members of the Soviet Union's communist nomenklatura (bureaucracy) and the consequence was the criminalization of much of the Russian economy. The social structure of these syndicates is based on a loose association of patron-client relationships rather than a centralized hierarchical system; their function is to provide illicit goods/services desired by the people. The authors conclude their study by emphasizing that what has taken place in Russia is not peculiar to the Russian people, but exemplifies what can happen to societies that experience rapid and intense social change.

Žurnāla „Inostrannaja Literatura” rezonanse Latvijas literārajā telpā politiskā atkušņa laikā

2021 ◽  
pp. 137-146
Author(s):  
Zanda Gūtmane
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Foreign Literature ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
Thaw Period

The paper is devoted to a parallel description of the literary processes in the Soviet Union and Soviet Latvia during Nikita Khrushchev’ reign, also known as the period of political thaw or the liberalisation of the communist regime (1953–1964). The main object of the research is the literary magazine Inostrannaja literatura (Иностранная литература), issued in the Soviet Union since 1955, dedicated to foreign literature and its translations; the principles of creating its content and structure during the political thaw period. The aim of the research: with concrete examples, to show the role of this legendary Russian literary periodical in the Iron Curtain period, expansion of freedom of thought, decanonization of socialist realism dogmas in general in the USSR, and also in the Latvian SSR. The methodological basis of the research consists of a comparative literature approach and a new historicism position that the literary text is important in studying different lines of history. The analysis of the publications clearly shows the replacement of the so-called periods of thaw and freezing. The article proves that the appearance of translations, reviews, previews, and research articles of foreign literature in this journal is closely connected with various political peripeteia of the USSR. In Latvia, there is a great resonance of Inostrannaja literatura, and it had an eventual influence on overcoming the dogmas of socialist realism in Latvian literature. The publications about the journal in Latvian literary editions and the study of the reception of one text example, a comparison of various editions of the writer Ēvalds Vilks’s (1923–1976) story “Twelve Kilometers”, prove it.

scholarly journals Problems of spatial planning, zoning and urban development in modern Russia

2019 ◽  
Vol 135 ◽  
pp. 03050
Author(s):  
Sergei Mezentsev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Territorial Planning ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Negative Phenomena ◽  
Made In

The purpose of this article is a comprehensive review of spatial and urban planning, and zoning in modern Russia. The starting point of the study is the experience of territorial, urban planning and zoning of the Soviet Union, which has achieved significant success in this area of activity. To achieve this goal, we used the books of modern Russian researchers and the author’s publications of this article, as well as materials posted on the Internet, applied philosophical and scientific approaches and research methods: systemic, dialectic, socio-humanitarian, anthropological, environmental, aesthetic and cybernetic approaches, as well as methods of observation, analysis, synthesis, analogy, comparison, generalization. As a result of the study, many negative phenomena and mistakes made in the territorial planning, zoning and urban development of post-Soviet Russia were revealed: the system was lost, the laws of dialectics are violated, there is no synergy between state structures and civil society, there is an excessive concentration of the population in Moscow and the Moscow region, it isn’t possible to provide comfortable and safe living conditions for each person and, the most importantly, environmental problems in cities and neighboring territories become more acute.

Explaining Kazakhstani identity: supraethnic identity, ethnicity, language, and citizenship

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 815-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristoffer Michael Rees ◽  
Nora Webb Williams
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ordered Probit ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Kazakh Population ◽  
Global Norms ◽  
Ordered Probit Models ◽  
Made In ◽  
Analyze Data

The demographic composition of Kazakhstan after the fall of the Soviet Union presented a dilemma to the new Kazakhstani government: Should it advance a Kazakh identity as paramount, possibly alienating the large non-Kazakh population? Or should it advocate for a non-ethnicized national identity? How would those decisions be made in light of global norms of liberal multiculturalism? And, critically, would citizens respond to new frames of identity? This paper provides an empirical look at supraethnic identity-building in Kazakhstan – that is, at the development of a national identity that individuals place above or alongside their ethnic identification. We closely examine the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan to describe how Kazakhstani policies intersect with theories of nationalism and nation-building. We then use ordered probit models to analyze data from a 2014 survey to examine how citizens of Kazakhstan associate with a “Kazakhstani” supraethnic identity. Our findings suggest that despite the Assembly of People's rhetoric, there are still significant barriers to citizen-level adoption of a supraethnic identity in Kazakhstan, particularly regarding language. However, many individuals do claim an association with Kazakhstani identity, especially those individuals who strongly value citizenship in the abstract.

scholarly journals Muzyczne reprezentacje przeszłości w dziecięcych filmach animowanych wyprodukowanych w Europie Środkowo- Wschodniej w latach komunizmu

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Lidia Babulewicz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Animated Films ◽  
Musical Representations ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Made In

Musical Representations of the Past in Animations for Children Produced in Central and Eastern Europe in Times of Communism The subject of the article is the composition strategies of presenting the bygone time in animated films produced in the integrated cultural space that was, during the communist era, Central and Eastern Europe. Productions made in two countries – in the Soviet Union and in Poland – are considered. The discussion of film examples is conducted in an approximate chronological order, according to the time of production of individual pictures. The presentation of specific productions is not intended to exhaustively analyse these audiovisual works, but to review thematic threads related to the past and in their context compositional ideas and tendencies.

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