“Civilizing the city center”: Symbolic spaces and narratives of the nation in Yerevan's post-Soviet landscape

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 570-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana K. Ter-Ghazaryan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
City Center ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The City

In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the landscape of Armenia's capital has transformed tremendously. Promoting a new vision for the city, Armenia's political elites have imbued the urban landscape of Yerevan with narratives of modernization, progress and a renewed sense of nationalism. While this new vision is noticeable throughout Yerevan's landscape, it is most apparent in three places in the center of Yerevan - Opera Square, Northern Avenue and Republic Square. These three prominent places represent the vision that the Armenian elites have for the city of Yerevan, while at the same time serving as backdrops for the expression of a critical voice regarding the changing urban landscape from the local residents. These three places are compelling representations of the tensions and struggles that are present in contemporary Armenian society. In this article, I examine the symbols and narratives that Armenia's elites produce and promote in and via these places, and consider the complicated set of reactions from residents that have formed in response.

Socio-political problems of residents of Вishkek residential areas

2021 ◽  
pp. 346-356
Author(s):  
Rita Bobuevna Salmorbekova ◽  
Dilshat Karimova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
Expert Survey ◽  
Education And Health ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Rational Distribution ◽  
Internal Migrants ◽  
The City

The article examines the problems of the population of the residential areas of the city of Bishkek based on the sociological study. An expert survey carried out in four districts of Bishkek is presented. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 50 new residential areas appeared in the city. Naturally, new residential areas do not have sufficient infrastructure for the population to this day. The current situation with internal migrants in Kyrgyzstan violates the regional demographic balance and the rational distribution of the population across the country. The population is moving actively at the interdistrict and interregional levels. As a result, the main influx of internal migrants moves to Bishkek and Chui Region. The problem of researching the state of the new residential areas in Bishkek is relevant for modern Kyrgyzstan. However, the official statistical base does not cover all citizens living in new buildings, since most residents do not have a residence registration in the area. 75–80 % of the population does not have education and health services. In many residential areas, social facilities, roads, and communications have not been built yet, and the infrastructure as a whole is not developed. Ignoring the issue on the part of the state can lead to a social explosion, expressed by protest actions, exacerbation of social and interregional conflicts among residents of the given area. Based on this, it was necessary to conduct an expert survey among the representatives of the municipal territorial authorities of each district. The main problems of residents of the new residential areas were studied as much as possible.

scholarly journals «ЧЕРКАСОВСКОЕ» ДВИЖЕНИЕ В ЯЛТЕ 1944 г.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
N.D. Borshchik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Health Resort ◽  
Crimean Peninsula ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Post War ◽  
The City

The article deals with the problems of post-war reconstruction of Yalta – one of the most popular resorts of the Soviet Union. During the great Patriotic war, this all-Union health resort was subjected to barbaric destruction and looting. The fascist occupation regime (1941-1944) caused enormous damage to the health resort Fund of Yalta, the city economy and the entire infrastructure of the southern coast of Crimea. The rapid return to the pre-war structure and the commissioning of social facilities has become a priority for the regional authorities and the population. In addition to traditional methods, the Patriotic «Сherkassov» movement, which began in the liberated Stalingrad in 1943 and spread throughout the country, was widely used. A solid Foundation was laid for the interaction of the city administration of Yalta and the local population with the commanders and soldiers of the red Army. Based on the analysis of archival documents of the State archive of the Republic of Crimea, it was possible to trace the course of restoration work in the fi rst months after the liberation of the Crimean Peninsula from fascism. It is established that for the rapid restoration and functioning of the Yalta resorts, public activists launched a socialist competition on «Сherkassov» methods

Soviet Selves

2019 ◽  
pp. 60-81
Author(s):  
Justine Buck Quijada
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Religious Actors

Chapter 2 presents the Soviet chronotope embodied in Victory Day celebrations. Victory Day, which is the celebration of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War II, presumes the familiar Soviet genre of history, in which the Soviet Union brought civilization to Buryatia, and Buryats achieved full citizenship in the Soviet utopian dream through their collective sacrifice during the war. The ritual does not narrate Soviet history. Instead, through Soviet and wartime imagery, and the parade form, the public holiday evokes this genre in symbolic form, enabling local residents to read their own narratives of the past into the imagery. This space for interpretation enables both validation as well as critique of the Soviet experience in Buryatia. Although not everyone in Buryatia agrees on how to evaluate this history, this genre is the taken-for-granted backdrop against which other religious actors define their narratives.

Sergei Viktorovich Yarov, 1959–2015

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 177-179
Author(s):  
Clayton Black
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Abstract This article offers a brief tribute to the life and career of Sergei Viktorovich Yarov, whose works pioneered new avenues of research in the history of workers, popular mentalities, and the city of Leningrad, especially during the Siege. It provides an assessment of his key works, especially his monographs, and his role in the development of the historical discipline in Russia before and after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Political Affinities and Maneuvering of Soviet Political Elites: Heorhii Shevel and Ukraine’s Ministry of Strange Affairs in the 1970s

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-411
Author(s):  
Olga Bertelsen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Soviet Power ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Institution

AbstractThis article examines the goals and practices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine in the 1970s, a Soviet institution that functioned as an ideological organ fighting against Ukrainian nationalists domestically and abroad. The central figure of this article is Heorhii Shevel who governed the Ministry from 1970 to 1980 and whose tactics, strategies, and practices reveal the existence of a distinct phenomenon in the Soviet Union—the nationally conscious political elite with double loyalties who, by action or inaction, expanded the space of nationalism in Ukraine. This research illuminates a paradox of pervasive Soviet power, which produced an institution that supported and reinforced Soviet “anti-nationalist” ideology, simultaneously creating an environment where heterodox views or sentiments were stimulated and nurtured.

scholarly journals Juda Hirsch Quastel, 2 October 1899 - 15 October 1987

1990 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 379-418 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Garment Factories ◽  
The Subject ◽  
East End ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The City

Juda Hirsch Quastel, who contributed for more than 60 years to the growth of biochemistry, was born in Sheffield, in a room over his father’s rented sweet shop on the Ecclesall Road. The date was 2 October 1899, and his parents, Jonas and Flora (Itcovitz) Quastel, had lived in England for only a few years. They had emigrated separately from the city of Tamopol in eastern Galicia, which was then within the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it has since, after a period under Polish rule, become part of the Ukrainian Republic of the Soviet Union. Tamopol at the end of the 19th century was a city of some 30 000 and the centre of an agricultural district. Its inhabitants were ethnically mixed, but about half of them were Jews, many of whom under the relatively benevolent Austrian regime were fairly prosperous. Quastel used to recall how his father and grandfather had held the Emperor Franz Joseph in great respect. His grandfather, also Juda Hirsch (married to Yetta Rappoport), had at one time worked as a chemist in a brewery laboratory in Tamopol. The parents of the subject of this biography had been in commerce there, and were not poor; but today’s family members know little about the life of Jonas and Flora in Tamopol, or about the reasons that persuaded them, like many of their neighbours, to emigrate to the West. An uncle had already gone to England, and perhaps had encouraged them to follow because of the greater opportunities. In England they lived at first in London’s east end, where they worked in garment factories; but their move to Sheffield, and to Jonas’s modest entrepreneurship, had been completed in the late 1890s. It was there that Juda Hirsch and his four younger siblings (Charles, Doris, Hetty and Anne) were born.

Allied Control Council for Germany

1949 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-178 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Power Control ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
City Government ◽  
Control Plan ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The City ◽  
Basic Prerequisite

Quadripartite Activity: Failure to find a solution of the Berlin currency problem after the question had been considered by the United Nations Security Council was evident when the replies of the western powers and the Soviet Union to Dr. Juan Atilio Bramuglia's questions about the problem were made public on November 26, 1948. The Soviet reply stated that an agreement on the four-power control plan would mean the simultaneous lifting of the Berlin blockade and a return to four-power collaboration in the administration of Berlin, which in effect would mean resumption of direct conversations on the currency questions among the four military governors. The western powers made it clear that they considered the unity of Berlin city administration as the basic prerequisite for an agreement. Several days later, on November 30, a city government was installed in the Soviet sector of Berlin, with Friedrich Ebert as its mayor and on December 21, the western military governments announced formal reconstitution of the Allied Kommandatura on a three-power basis. In announcing the move, Brig. Gen. Jean Ganeval, French sector commandant, stated that fourparty administration of the city could be resumed any time that Soviet authorities decided to abide by agreements to which the four powers were committed.

John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Michael E. Meagher ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Presidential Rhetoric ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The West ◽  
Full Extent ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
The City

Most Americans in the 1920s and 1930s were unaware of the crimes committed in the Soviet Union. Even today, the full extent of the carnage is unknown. This essay explores the ways in which Presidents Kennedy and Reagan dealt with the contrast between the open societies of the West and the severely damage civil societies of the Soviet bloc through the rhetorical presidency. Key speeches throughout the two administrations stressed the use of presidential rhetoric as a way of challenging the communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR. For both Presidents, the key rhetorical moment came in West Berlin, in 1963 and 1987, respectively. Using comparable language Kennedy and Reagan spoke of the hope offered by West Berlin to those suffering under communist rule. The highlight came when Reagan challenged the Soviet leaders to tear down the Wall separating the city. Ironically, the victory over Soviet bloc communism has not led to the elimination of communist regimes, notably China. That chapter in the struggle against communism remains yet to be written.

Passions about Arkaim: Russian Nationalism, the Aryans, and the Politics of Archaeology

Inner Asia ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. A. Shnirelman
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Southern Urals ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
The Southern Urals ◽  
Sacred Place ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Politics Of Archaeology ◽  
The City

AbstractArkaim is the name given to the site of an ancient town in the Southern Urals, dated to the 17th–16th centuries BC. Discovered in 1987, Arkaim rapidly became more than an archaeological site. It became the focus for an extraordinary congolmeration of ideas linked to ecological and political movements, in particular those of Russian nationalists. Threatened with flooding because of a dam project, Arkaim was made a ‘Museum Reserve’. Soon it became the focus for theories that this was a sacred place and furthermore the home of proto-Slavs. The break-up of the Soviet Union was followed by attempts by Russian nationalists to demonstrate the legitimacy of their domination of the former empire. The article shows how quasi historical claims expanded into myth and fantasy, linked to the emergence of new cults. Arkaim became the city not only of proto Slavs but of Zarathustra and the Aryans too. Such inventions are related to local politics and ethnic tensions as well as to wider Russian nationalism.

scholarly journals Useful wasteland - the potential of undeveloped land in modification of urban green infrastructure based on the city of Poznań

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 225-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Gałecka-Drozda ◽  
Elżbieta Raszeja
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Community Gardens ◽  
Urban Ecosystems ◽  
Barren Land ◽  
Recreation Areas ◽  
Railway Infrastructure ◽  
Abandoned Land ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
The City

Abstract Numerous barren land areas are found within administrative boundaries of cities. They include both former farmland located at the outskirts of cities, as well as vacant plots, postindustrial plots or former railway infrastructure plots. Barren plots are integral elements of the urban landscape and contemporary scientific concepts indicate their important role in the functioning of urban ecosystems. Abandoned land provides a potential for the development of green infrastructure and further development of recreation areas. At the same time some abandoned plots are informally adapted by local residents to suit their needs, transforming them into community gardens and recreation areas. This paper presents results of studies conducted by the authors in selected derelict areas in the city of Poznań. Analyses were conducted on their type, origin, size and location within the city. Observations were also recorded on the methods to adapt abandoned land by local communities.

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