The Muslims in Russia: between historical legacy and contemporary problematics

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abdel-Hafez Fawaz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
History Of ◽  
Russian Media ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Radical Ideas

Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia had a history of relations with their Muslims that varied between integration or coexistence and resistance or conflict. Russia had perpetually reaffirmed that its war in Chechnya in the 1990s was not against Muslims per se, but rather against terrorist groups that were attempting to disseminate their radical ideas in the Muslim Chechen Republic as well as throughout the other republics of the North Caucasus. From their standpoint Chechen fighters described the struggle as a new round of Russian efforts to bury Chechen demands for independence. Nevertheless, this historical experience of struggle also coincided with periods of peaceful coexistence witnessed in other regions such as the Volga and Ural River Basin. Thus, the question remains: what of the contemporary challenges faced by the Muslims of Russia in their relations with the state and their relations among themselves? This research seeks to answer the following questions: How is it that religious and sectarian tolerance came to predominate in Tatarstan but regressed in Chechnya and Dagestan? Why have relations between Sufis and Salafists been subject to increasing tensions in the North Caucasus? Do the tensions witnessed in Dagestan and Chechnya reflect a genuine sectarian struggle or is the matter more complicated than that? How has the Russian media impacted – positively or negatively – ethnic and sectarian relations within the state?

scholarly journals Demographic Development of Russia in Geopolitical Coordinates of the XX – Early XXI Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-154
Author(s):  
Leonid L. Rybakovsky ◽  
◽  
Natalia I. Kozhevnikova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Demographic Development ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Demographic Dynamics ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The One

The article shows that due to the fact that Russia has the largest territory among the rest of the world, the richest natural resources, making it a self-sufficient, advantageous geographical position, as well as a kind of history of the creation and development of the state, in the past, and still causes hostile attitude to it a number of states. Thanks to sufficient human potential, Russia, constituting the core of a state united with other peoples in pre-revolutionary and Soviet times, was able to defend its homeland, even from such an enemy as Nazi Germany. The increase in the population of Russia has always been the most important factor in ensuring the security of the state. The paper provides a detailed description of the demographic development of Russia, both as part of the Soviet Union and as an independent state. The dynamics of the population of Russia is considered, on the one hand, in the group of countries with a predominance of the Slavic ethnos, and on the other hand, it is compared with the demographic dynamics of the English-speaking group of countries.

Understanding Russia’s Low Rate of Acquittal: Pretrial Screening and the Problem of Accusatorial Bias

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Low Rate

The Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia alike have had extremely low rates of acquittal in criminal cases, which conventional wisdom associates with an accusatorial bias. But other countries like Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, and France also have low rates of acquittal without the perception of bias. This article argues that the key difference lies in the presence or absence of pretrial screening—through the withdrawal of charges, diversion, and/or dispositions imposed by prosecutors. After a brief history of the low acquittal rate in Russia, the article documents the use of prosecutorial discretion to screen cases before trial in those four Western countries, especially through the exercise by prosecutors of quasi-judicial functions. The article goes on to demonstrate the absence of significant pretrial filtering of cases in Russia and to explore the implications for understanding the rate of acquittal.

Accommodation and Welfare of the Special Settlers of Kuban in the 1930s (on the Example of Karaganda Region)

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10 (108)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Arailym Mussagaliyeva
Keyword(s):  
Living Arrangements ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
The State ◽  
State Archive ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
Contingent Labor ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Karaganda Region

The article is devoted to the history of the special settlers of the North Caucasus, including their placement and living arrangements in the of Central and Northern Kazakhstan, including on of the Karaganda region. The main attention in the article is paid to a special contingent, labor settlers from the Kuban in 1932—1933. Their history in modern science has not yet been studied. The article uses archival documents of the central, regional and local archives of Kazakhstan, including the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the State Archive of the Karaganda Region, the State Archive of the Akmola Region, the State Archive of the Social and Political History of the Turkestan Region, the State Archive of the city of Temirtau, the State Archive of the Osakarovsky District of the Karaganda Region, the State archive of the Shortandy district of the Akmola region. Published documents in collections of documents from Russia and Kazakhstan were analyzed.

Muslims in Russia and the Successor States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Central Russia ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Muslim Communities

The history of Muslim populations in Russia and other former republics of the Soviet Union is long and varied. In a Pew–Templeton poll conducted in Russia in 2010, 10 percent of respondents stated that their religion was Islam, while Muslims also make up a majority of the population in six post-Soviet republics: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Muslims have long lived in regions across Russia, with far-flung communities ranging from distant outposts of Siberia to western cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were more Muslims in the Russian Empire than there were in Iran or the Ottoman Empire, the two largest independent Muslim-majority states in the world at the time. Historically, the Muslim communities of Russia have been concentrated in four main regions: the Volga–Ural region in central Russia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. While Muslim communities across former Soviet space share both differences and similarities with one another with regard to language and religious practices, their respective relations with the various Russian states that have existed over the years have varied. Moreover, Russian and Soviet policymaking toward all of these communities has shifted considerably from one era, and one ruler, to another. Throughout the imperial and Soviet eras, and extending into the post-Soviet era up to the present day, therefore, the existence of variations with regard to both era and region remains one of the most enduring legacies of Muslim–state interactions. Muslims in Russia vary by traditions, language, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and practices, and with respect to their historical interactions with the Russian state. The four historically Muslim-inhabited regions were incorporated into the Russian state at different points during its imperial history, often under quite sharply contrasting sets of conditions. Today most, but not all, Muslims in Russia and the rest of the former USSR are Sunni, although the manner and degree to which religion is practiced varies greatly among both communities and individuals. With respect to language, Muslim communities in Russia have traditionally been dominated demographically by Turkic speakers, although it should be noted that most Turkic languages are not mutually comprehensible in spoken form. In the North Caucasus and Tajikistan, the most widely spoken indigenous languages are not Turkic, although in these areas there are Turkic-speaking minorities. Another important feature of Muslim–state interactions in Russia is their connection to Muslims and Muslim-majority states beyond Russia’s borders. Throughout the imperial era, Russia’s foreign policymaking vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire and Iran was often intimately connected to domestic policymaking toward Muslim communities inside Russia. While this was a less pronounced feature of Moscow’s foreign policymaking during the Soviet era, in the post-Soviet era, policymaking toward Muslims domestically has once again become more closely linked to Russia’s foreign policy goals.

scholarly journals Comparative Religion and Anti-Religious Museums of Soviet Russia in the 1920s

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Marianna Shakhnovich
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Comparative Religion ◽  
Short Life ◽  
Historical Museums ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Selection Of

By the end of the 1920s, more than 100 anti-religious museums had been opened in the Soviet Union. In addition, anti-religious departments appeared in the exhibitions of many local historical museums. In Moscow, the Central Anti-Religious Museum was opened in the Cathedral of the Strastnoi Monastery. At that time, the first museum promoting a comparative and historical approach to the study and presentation of religious artifacts was opened in Petrograd in 1922. The formation of Museum of Comparative Religion was based on the conjunction of the activities of the Petrograd Excursion Institute, the Academy of Sciences, and the Ethnographic department of Petrograd University. In this paper, based on archival materials, we analyze the methodological principles of the formation of the exhibitions at the newly founded museum, along with its themes, structure, and selection of exhibits. The Museum of Comparative Religion had a very short life before it was transformed into the Leningrad anti-religious museum, but its principles were inherited by the Museum of the History of Religion, which was opened in 1932.

ISAAK RUBIN: HISTORIAN OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT DURING THE STALINIZATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES IN SOVIET RUSSIA

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Boldyrev ◽  
Martin Kragh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Uncertainty ◽  
Soviet Russia

Research within the history of economic thought has focused only little on the development of economics under dictatorship. This paper attempts to show how a country with a relatively large and internationally established community of social scientists in the 1920s, the Soviet Union, was subjected to repression. We tell this story through the case of Isaak Il’ich Rubin, a prominent Russian economist and historian of economic thought, who in the late 1920s was denounced by rival scholars and repressed by the political system. By focusing not only on his life and work, but also on that of his opponents and institutional clashes, we show how the decline of a social science tradition in Russia and the USSR as well as the Stalinization of Soviet social sciences emerged as a process over time. We analyze the complex interplay of ideas, scholars, and their institutional context, and conclude that subsequent repression was arbitrary, suggesting that no clear survival or career strategy existed in the Stalinist system, due to a situation of fundamental uncertainty.

Visualizing History: Truthfulness in North Korean Art

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-201
Author(s):  
Min-Kyung Yoon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The State ◽  
Korean Art ◽  
Visual Form ◽  
Utopian Vision ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union

Abstract In North Korean paintings, history is mobilized to legitimate the North Korean system and its leaders. Utilizing the mode of socialist realism, North Korean paintings give visual form to a socialist world, a utopian vision full of unremitting heroism, harvest, and happiness centered on the ruling Kim family. In these paintings, positive heroes such as laborers, workers, farmers, and children are depicted in historically correct scenes that always propel the North Korean revolution forward. After adopting socialist realism from the Soviet Union, North Korea localized this creative method to meet its specific political needs through medium and content. Through this process, socialist realism came to reflect the ideals of juche, the state ideology of North Korea. Informed by North Korean theoretical writings on art and art reviews, this article examines how history is visually mobilized in three paintings created in 1985 and 2000 through the language of juche realism.

A Separate Moldovan Language? The Sociolinguistics of Moldova'sLimba de Stat

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 575-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Ciscel
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Language And Power ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Soviet Russia

The politics of language identity have figured heavily in the history of the people of the Republic of Moldova. Indeed the region's status as a province of Russia, Romania, and then the Soviet Union over the past 200 years has consistently been justified and, at least partially, manipulated on the basis of language issues. At the center of these struggles over language and power has been the linguistic and cultural identity of the region's autochthonous ethnicity and current demographic majority, the Moldovans. In dispute is the degree to which these Moldovans are culturally, historically, and linguistically related to the other Moldovans and Romanians across the Prut River in Romania. Under imperial Russia from 1812 to 1918 and Soviet Russia from 1944 to 1991, a proto-Moldovan identity that eschewed connections to Romania and emphasized contact with Slavic peoples was promoted in the region. Meanwhile, experts from Romania and the West have regularly argued that the eastern Moldovans are indistinguishable, historically, culturally, and linguistically, from their Romanian cousins.

scholarly journals “Forward to the bright future of socialism!”: the role of images and symbols in promoting collectivization in Soviet Ukraine

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 10003
Author(s):  
Oksana Zhukova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Information ◽  
The State ◽  
Bright Future ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Heritage ◽  
National Flag ◽  
The Village

In every country, state symbols such as the national flag, emblem, and national anthems represent the independence and sovereignty of the state. In the Soviet Union as well as in other autocratic states symbols also played an important role in propaganda, influencing peoples’ attitudes to the actions of the state at all levels. These symbols could also be found, together with powerful imagery in posters, on buildings, monuments and many other things visible and incorporated in the routine life the people. Ukraine has huge historical heritage of symbolism and propaganda from when the country was a major part of the USSR. After the creation of the USSR a political, socio-economic, cultural and spiritual experiment on the construction of a communist society, which in the case of Ukraine was unprecedented in scale and tragedy, began. The collectivization of the village is one of the most tragic pages in the history of Ukraine. As the most important grain-growing region of the country at the time its production was vital to feed the growing cities and industrialisation. The forced collectivisation led to starvation in the 1930s and millions of people died. In order to counter this most public information showed people another side of collectivization. Propaganda was used, such as posters and slogans, to persuade the peasants to join the collective farms and to promote the real or fictitious results of the workers, and, conversely, to attack people who did not want to believe in the “bright future” of the USSR and to denounce “kulaks” and “saboteurs”. Materials from archives and published sources show many examples of Ukrainian images and symbols of that time which shed a light on the way the collectivisation process was portrayed and promoted.

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