Anglo Nostalgia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edoardo Campanella ◽  
Marta Dassù
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Great Danger ◽  
Ageing Populations

Nostalgia has become a major force in global politics. While Donald Trump hopes to ‘make America great again’, Xi Jinping calls for a ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese people’, and a majority of Russians still mourn the Soviet Union. But it is Brexit, with its idealization of a bygone era of full sovereignty, that epitomizes nostalgic nationalism in its purest form. Despite its romantic flavor, nostalgia is a malaise—a combination of paranoia and melancholy that idealizes the past, while denigrating the present. This epidemic of mythicizing national history is shaping politics in risky ways, fueled by ageing populations, shifts in the global order, and technological disruption. When deployed in the political debate, collective nostalgia is used as an emotional weapon, capable of mobilizing a nation towards illusory goals. Drawing on psychology, political science, history and popular culture, Anglo Nostalgia analyses the rapid spread of this global phenomenon, before focusing on Brexit as a case study. With the detachment of informed outsiders, Campanella and Dassù expose nostalgia’s great danger: the oversimplification of reality, leading to unprecedented political miscalculations and rising geopolitical tensions.

The Mutability of the Canon: Socialist Realism and Chingiz Aitmatov's I dol'she veka dlitsia den'

Slavic Review ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Clark
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
The Way

Chingiz Aitmatov's recent novel I dol'she veka dlitsia den’ provides an excellent case study of the way the socialist realist canon can generate new paradigms out of itself. At a time when it is widely assumed in the West that all reputable Soviet authors have gone “beyond” socialist realism, the appearance of this novel is particularly instructive.Aitmatov's book has had greater impact in the Soviet Union than any other novel published there in recent years. It covers subjects that are both highly topical and sensitive politically. Yet it does so by using the conventions of socialist realism to a greater extent than has been seen in the major Soviet writing of the past fifteen years. Indeed, Aitmatov has somehow contrived to weave into the fabric of his text patterns reminiscent of every period in the development of socialist realism.

‘Long live the friendship between the Soviet Union and Finland!’ Irony, nostalgia, and melodrama in Finnish historical television drama and documentary series

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari Pajala
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
East West

In critical studies on historical television programmes, the affective qualities of televisual memory have been discussed mainly in terms of nostalgia. This article argues that conceptualizing the affective modes of relating to the past in more varied ways can help us to better understand the politics of memory on television. As a case study, the article analyses Finnish Broadcasting Company Yleisradio’s historical drama and documentary series that deal with the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union. The article identifies three affective modes in the programmes: irony, nostalgia and melodrama. Each of these modes offers different possibilities for critiquing, understanding and justifying the past. By studying televisual memories of the Soviet Union in a non-socialist country with important political, economic and cultural ties with the socialist bloc, the article moreover questions a clear East–West binary in studies on post-socialist memory.

scholarly journals Spaces of Dependence and Emancipation in Architectural and Urban Narration, a Case Study: Plac Żołnierza Polskiego and Plac Solidarności in Szczecin

Arts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Izabela Kozłowska ◽  
Eryk Krasucki
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Urban Narratives ◽  
Eastern European Countries

Central and Eastern European countries were subjugated to the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century. In this new political environment, defined as the period of dependency, the concept of space gained a new denotation as a space of dependence, in both social and physical terms. The political changes that took place after 1989 enabled these spaces to be emancipated. In this work, we aim to delineate the complex relationship between architecture and politics from the perspective of spaces of dependence and their emancipation. Through a case study of two squares, plac Żołnierza Polskiego (the Square of the Polish Soldier) and plac Solidarności (Solidarity Square) in Szczecin, we gained insights into the processes and strategies that promoted their evolution into spaces of emancipation within architectural and urban narratives. Szczecin’s space of dependence was created by an authoritarian state that had a monopoly on defining architecture and urban planning in the country and the state as a whole. In a process orchestrated by economic factors, as well as the scale of architectural and urban degradation, the squares under discussion have transitioned from spaces of dependency to spaces of emancipation. As a result, an architectural-urban structure characterized by new cultural and identity values has been created.

Flowers Through Concrete

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane Fürst
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Psychiatric Hospitals ◽  
Stable Relationship ◽  
Youth Cultures ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Socialism

Flowers through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland does what the title promises. It takes readers on a journey into a world few knew existed: the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies, who in the face of disapproval and repression created a version of Western counterculture, skilfully adapting, manipulating, and shaping it to their late socialist environment. This book is a quasi-guide into the underground hippieland, situating the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and offering an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study in the power of transnational youth cultures. It tells the almost forgotten story of how in the late sixties hippie communities sprang up across the Soviet Union, often under the tutelage of a few rebellious youngsters coming from privileged households at the heart of the Soviet establishment. Flowers through Concrete recounts not only a compelling story of survival against the odds—hippies were harassed by police, shorn of their hair by civilian guards, and confined in psychiatric hospitals by doctors who believed nonconformism was a symptom of schizophrenia. It also advances a surprising argument: despite obvious antagonism the land of Soviet hippies and the world of late socialism were not incompatible. Indeed, Soviet hippies and late socialist reality meshed so well that the hostile, yet stable, relationship that emerged was in many ways symbiotic. Ultimately, it was not the KGB but the arrival of capitalism in the 1990s that ended the Soviet hippie sistema.

Soviet Foreign Policy Factionalism Under Stalin?: A Case Study of the Inevitability of War Controversy

1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Paul Marantz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Harsh Discipline ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Strict Adherence ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Important Evidence

AbstractThere has been a great deal of controversy among Western scholars concerning the direction of Soviet foreign policy in the final years and months of Stalin's rule.1 One of the crucial questions at issue is whether or not there were significant divisions of opinion within the Politburo over foreign policy matters. This article attempts to explore this particular question through an examination of a doctrinal controversy that surfaced during Stalin's last years. In one of his most famous works, Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism, Lenin argued that war was an inevitable concomitant of the capitalist system. He contended that the unending struggle for markets meant that periodic wars among the capitalist powers were unavoidable and inevitable.2 Stalin adhered to this view throughout his long reign, and it was not until three years after Stalin's death, in Khruschchev's speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, that it was finally revised. Yet despite Stalin's strict adherence to the Leninist analysis of imperialism, and despite the harsh discipline that characterized his rule, there is evidence that the official interpretation was being publicly questioned even while Stalin was still alive. Given the nature of esoteric communication in the Soviet Union,and the close connection between doctrinal and policy debates, an examination of the controversy concerning the inevitability of war can provide important evidence having a direct bearing upon our understanding of this period.3

scholarly journals c) Cuba: A Sui Generis Case Study (Communist Proxy)

2021 ◽  
pp. 309-317
Author(s):  
Jason García Portilla
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Institutional Influence ◽  
Latin American Countries

AbstractThe anti-clerical elements of the Revolution helped Cuba succeed in various indicators (e.g. education quality and coverage, equality, health). The Cuban regime seized, dismantled, and limited the institutional influence of Roman Catholicism on these areas of public life. However, a strong cultural influence of a highly syncretised Roman Catholicism persists in Cuba even if its institutional influence has been curbed. Also, the Communist regime, by adopting Marxism, “threw the baby out with the bathwater” through persecuting all types of religion, including Protestant liberals. Finally, the Cuban regime conveniently turned to Rome to legitimise itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union and to silence Protestantism with a corporatist strategy. The socialist legal tradition had an effect opposite to its claims (e.g. lack of freedom, corruption), even if its anti-clerical element was an advantage. Comparing the Cuban experience to other Latin American countries with leftist dictatorships (e.g. Venezuela) helps understand their failure to achieve the Cuban indicators (e.g. education). The crucial factor in this regard is whether or not the power and influence of the Roman Church-State are reduced.

Challenging US Hegemony: The Ukrainian Crisis and Russian Regional Order

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-95
Author(s):  
Michael O. Slobodchikoff
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Dynamic Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
Ukrainian Crisis ◽  
The Cold War

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was reduced from the role of a global hegemon to that of a regional hegemon. As the regional hegemon, Russia was responsible for creating a regional order that was nested within the global order. However, since the Soviet Union had collapsed, it could not be assumed that Russia would create a regional order that was compatible with the global order. Would Russia create a regional order that was incompatible with the global order, and further, would Russia be a dissatisfied state that would challenge US hegemony? Using network analysis, I discover that Russia created a regional order that was compatible with the global order. In other words, Russia did not directly challenge the global order. More specifically, Russia accepted the global order that existed at the end of the Cold War. Providing that the global order remained static, Russia would not challenge that order. However, US actions following the collapse of the Soviet Union such as the expansion ofnatoand the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty are interpreted by Russia as a dynamic change in the global order. The Ukrainian crisis further exacerbated the wedge that had developed between the United States and Russia. It has further isolated Russia, destroyed the regional order nested within the global order, and ensured that Russia fully became a dissatisfied state looking to challenge US hegemony. Russia will now turn to China to try to challenge US hegemony.

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