History of the Hydrometeorological Service of Belarus

Author(s):  
Irina Danilovich ◽  
Auchynikava Raisa ◽  
Victoria Slonosky

The first weather observations within the modern territory of Belarus go back to ancient times and are found as mentions of weather conditions in chronicles. Hydrometeorology in those times was not a defined science but connected to the everyday needs of people in different regions. In the period from 1000 to 1800, there were first efforts to document outstanding weather conditions and phenomena. They are stored in chronicles, books, and reports. The first instrumental observations started in the early 1800s. They have varying observing practices and periods of observations. The hydrometeorological network saw the active expansion of observations in the following century, but the network was destroyed at the beginning of the civil war (1917–1922). Five years later, hydrometeorological activity resumed, and the foundation of meteorological services of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was initiated. The next years saw a complicated Belarusian hydrometeorological service formation and reorganization. The meteorological bureau was formed in 1924, and this year is considered the official date of the Hydrometeorological Service of Belarus foundation, despite multiple changes in title and functions during its course. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) people’s courage and efforts were directed to saving the existing network of hydrometeorological observations and providing weather services for military purposes. The postwar period was characterized by the implementation of new methods of weather forecasting and new forms of hydrometeorological information. Later decades were marked by the invention and implementation of new observational equipment. The Hydrometeorological Service of Belarus in this period was a testing ground within the Soviet Union for the development of meteorological tools and devices. The current Hydrometeorological Service of Belarus is described as an efficient, modern-equipped, and constantly developing weather service.

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (02) ◽  
pp. 207-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Zakharova

Why should we consider the everyday life of ordinary citizens in their countless struggles to obtain basic consumer goods if the priorities of their leaders lay elsewhere? For years, specialists of the Soviet Union and the people's democracies neglected the history of everyday life and, like the so-called “totalitarian” school, focused on political history, seeking to grasp how power was wielded over a society that was considered immobile and subject to the state's authority. Furthermore, studies on the eastern part of Europe were dominated by political scientists who were interested in the geopolitics of the Cold War. The way the field was structured meant that little attention was paid to sociological and anthropological perspectives that sought to understand social interaction.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-297
Author(s):  
Elena Nikolaevna Gnatovskaya ◽  
Alexander Alexeevich Kim

This work presents new research on the everyday life of railroad workers in the Soviet Far East and their relations with the authorities beginning in the 1930s to 1945. The authors present their findings from a number of archival materials that are examined here for the first time in a scholarly manner. The article examines aspects of labor organization, socialist competition, labor discipline, and workers’ participation in various railway political and ideological campaigns during these years. The authors also give significant attention to the reactions of the workers to the policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (cpsu), laborers’ behavior in the workplace, and the history of various mass campaigns.


Author(s):  
О.С. Каденюк

The article, on the example of Volyn, analyzes the activities of public organizations in the Ukrainian ethnic lands that became part of Poland and the Soviet Union after the signing of the Riga peace treaty. These lands were the reflection of the most tragic pages in the history of Ukraine. More than once, they have played an extraordinary role in the history of the entire Ukrainian people, which has been reflected in his fate. The defeat of national liberation competitions in 1917 - 1921 and the tragic consequences of these events for the Ukrainian statehood turned Volyn into a specific socio-political and geopolitical region. The events in these territories, as well as the policies of the governments of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the USSR and the Second Commonwealth, were decisive for the Ukrainian population living on ethnic Ukrainian lands and those who found themselves in other countries. Our research suggests that the socio-economic processes in Volyn during the interwar period were an interesting social phenomenon when Ukrainians were immigrants in their ethnic lands among Ukrainians. The line of the Soviet-Polish border, which was the frontier of the opposition, attracted the most active participants in the national liberation struggle, who continued it under new conditions of statelessness, political and ideological pressure, persecution and repression by the smelling regimes. Work and activity in the interwar period of prominent political figures of the UNR era, religious, cultural and educational figures in the territory of Western Volyn, was of great importance not only for the population of the region, but also for the Ukrainian people.In the Volyn lands, the Orthodox Church had a huge influence on the people, Christian morality in the interwar period acted as the dominant ideology. No political party or NGO has had such an impact on the masses as the church. Understanding this, the Ukrainian clergy not only defended the Orthodox faith on both sides of the borders that divided Volhynia, but also nurtured national consciousness, language, and culture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-78
Author(s):  
Andrejs Gusachenko ◽  
Vineta Kleinberga

Abstract On 18 November 1918, the independent Republic of Latvia was declared in an extremely complicated international and domestic environment—the First World War was still going on, empires were collapsing, and ethnically and ideologically diverse military troops were fighting within the boundaries of Latvian territory. Despite the historical context of a previously tense relationship between Latvians and other ethnic groups, representatives of all minorities fought next to Latvians against the enemies of the Latvian state. Up until 11 August 1920, when the Peace Treaty with the Soviet Russia was signed, the prospects of de jure recognition of the newly established state were blurred; yet, the defeat of the White forces in the Russian Civil War opened the long awaited “window of opportunity”, as a result of which Latvia managed to achieve its international recognition on 26 January 1921. More than seventy years later, on 4 May 1990, when the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), the international and domestic situation was no less complicated. Latvia was forcefully incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and became part of it, yet the economic and political deterioration of the Soviet Union, the national awakening in the Baltic States and other Soviet republics alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall gave momentum for the regime to change. On 21 August 1991, after the barricades and bloody clashes with the Soviet Special Purpose Police Units (OMON) in Riga on January and the failed coup d’état in Moscow in August, Latvia’s independence once again became a reality. In the events of the 1990s, the memories of 1918 and Latvia’s independence in the period between the two world wars were crucial. It is manifested by the fact that Latvian statehood in 1991 was not established anew but restored. Acknowledging the importance of history on contemporary identification and policy-making, this article aims to provide an insight into the history of 1917–1922 and its resonance in the contemporary situation. Using the methodology of literature analysis and historical process-tracing it will reveal the complicated process of the state’s formation and recognition in the period of 1917–1922, paying particular attention to the role of the minorities and diplomatic efforts. It will also uncover the resonance of the events of 1918–1922 in the 1990s, when Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union was declared, focusing in particular on aspects defining the statehood of Latvia and its citizenship. In this part, it will be argued that the history of 1917–1922 was brought back when the statehood of Latvia was concerned, while overshadowed by fifty years of the Soviet occupation, when the citizenship issue was on the agenda. Indeed, not only ethnic Latvians but also minorities living in Latvia played a decisive role in the efforts of restoring Latvia’s independence. However, as a result of the Citizenship Law,1 adopted in 1994, more than one-fourth of the population—in most cases, representatives of the Russian-speaking community—were denied citizenship. This practice contrasts the Act that had been adopted in the interwar period, when Latvian citizenship was granted to all ethnic groups who were living within the borders of the then agreed Latvian territory, notwithstanding their diverse ideological background. Given this fact, the article provides future research opportunities related to perceptions of history in contemporary policy-making.


1970 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 442-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Lukacs

The Second World War became a world war only in December 1941. By that time not only the extent but also the character of its warfare had changed, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Thus 1941 was even more of a turning-point in the history of the Second World War than 1917 had been in the history of the First. Most historians of the Second World War would agree with this assessment. Thus it is perhaps not surprising that relatively little interest has been devoted to the history of the everyday lives of European peoples during the years 1939–41, during what could be called in retrospect (perhaps hopefully so) the Last European War.


2018 ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Denzenlkham Ulambayar

Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American struggle generated the origins of the Korean War, namely the Soviet Union’s occupation of the northern half of the Korean peninsula and the United States’ occupation of the southern half to the 38th parallel after 1945 as well as the emerging bipolar world order of international relations and Cold War. Newly available Russian archival documents produced much in the way of new energies and opportunities for international study and research into the Korean War.2 However, within this research few documents connected to Mongolia have so far been found, and little specific research has yet been done regarding why and how Mongolia participated in the Korean War. At the same time, it is becoming today more evident that both Soviet guidance and U.S. information reports (evaluated and unevaluated) regarding Mongolia were far different from the situation and developments of that period. New examples of this tendency are documents declassified in the early 2000s and released publicly from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in December 2016 which contain inaccurate information. The original, uncorrupted sources about why, how and to what degree the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) became a participant in the Korean War are in fact in documents held within the Mongolian Central Archives of Foreign Affairs. These archives contain multiple documents in relation to North Korea. Prior to the 1990s Mongolian scholars Dr. B. Lkhamsuren,3 Dr. B. Ligden,4 Dr. Sh. Sandag,5 junior scholar J. Sukhee,6 and A. A. Osipov7 mention briefly in their writings the history of relations between the MPR and the DPRK during the Korean War. Since the 1990s the Korean War has also briefly been touched upon in the writings of B. Lkhamsuren,8 D. Ulambayar (the author of this paper),9 Ts. Batbayar,10 J. Battur,11 K. Demberel,12 Balảzs Szalontai,13 Sergey Radchenko14 and Li Narangoa.15 There have also been significant collections of documents about the two countries and a collection of memoirs published in 200716 and 2008.17 The author intends within this paper to discuss particularly about why, how and to what degree Mongolia participated in the Korean War, the rumors and realities of the war and its consequences for the MPR’s membership in the United Nations. The MPR was the second socialist country following the Soviet Union (the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) to recognize the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and establish diplomatic ties. That was part of the initial stage of socialist system formation comprising the Soviet Union, nations in Eastern Europe, the MPR, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK. Accordingly between the MPR and the DPRK fraternal friendship and a framework of cooperation based on the principles of proletarian and socialist internationalism had been developed.18 In light of and as part of this framework, The Korean War has left its deep traces in the history of the MPR’s external diplomatic environment and state sovereignty


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
Tatsiana Hiarnovich

The paper explores the displace of Polish archives from the Soviet Union that was performed in 1920s according to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 and other international agreements. The aim of the research is to reconstruct the process of displace, based on the archival sources and literature. The object of the research is those documents that were preserved in the archives of Belarus and together with archives from other republics were displaced to Poland. The exploration leads to clarification of the selection of document fonds to be displaced, the actual process of movement and the explanation of the role that the archivists of Belarus performed in the history of cultural relationships between Poland and the Soviet Union. The articles of the Treaty of Riga had been formulated without taking into account the indivisibility of archive fonds that is one of the most important principles of restitution, which caused the failure of the treaty by the Soviet part.


Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.


Author(s):  
A. James McAdams

This book is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. The book argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. It shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.


Author(s):  
Ilkhomjon M. Saidov ◽  

The article is devoted to the participation of natives of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in the Baltic operation of 1944. The author states that Soviet historiography did not sufficiently address the problem of participation of individual peoples of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War, and therefore their feat remained undervalued for a long time. More specifically, according to the author, 40–42% of the working age population of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Such figure was typical only for a limited number of countries participating in the anti-fascist coalition. Analyzing the participation of Soviet Uzbekistan citizens in the battles for the Baltic States, the author shows that the 51st and 71st guards rifle divisions, which included many natives of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, were particularly distinguished. Their heroic deeds were noted by the soviet leadership – a number of Uzbek guards were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In addition, Uzbekistanis fought as part of partisan detachments – both in the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, the Western regions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Moldova. Many Uzbek partisans were awarded the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War” of I and II degrees.


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