Sino-Soviet Romance: An Emotional History of Revolutionary Geopolitics

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 853-873
Author(s):  
Elizabeth McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Other ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Emotional Complexity ◽  
The Relationship

This article argues that the relationship between the Russian and Chinese revolutions can be interpreted as a romance, to create an emotional history of elite revolutionary geopolitics. Tracing the stories of two prominent Sino-Soviet couples – President of Taiwan Jiang Jingguo and his wife Faina Vakhreva, and PRC Labor Minister Li Lisan and his wife Elizaveta Kishkina – against a larger backdrop of cultural exchange highlights continuities in a relationship most often described in terms of its ruptures. In the 1920s, when Jiang Jingguo first arrived in the Soviet Union, attitudes toward love and sex in both cultures were shifting, and the Chinese Revolution was celebrated in Moscow, rendering early Chinese experiences there romantic on several levels. The Liza-Li affair, begun in the difficult circumstances of the 1930s, highlights the ways in which the choices of one partner, personal or geopolitical, could come to constrain those of the other, through the 1950s and beyond. Such deeply felt and publicly prominent cross-cultural romances gave China’s relationship with Russia an emotional complexity and cultural depth that were lacking before the advent of twentieth century communism – and have survived its demise.

Century of Ukraine's diplomatic service

2017 ◽  
pp. 77-94
Author(s):  
Yuriy Makar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
State Committee ◽  
The West ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National University ◽  
Central Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth

On December 22, 2017 the Ukrainian Diplomatic Service marked the 100thanniversary of its establishment and development. In dedication to such a momentous event, the Department of International Relations of Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University has published a book of IR Dept’s ardent activity since its establishment. It includes information both in Ukrainian and English on the backbone of the collective and their versatile activities, achievements and prospects for the future. The author delves into retracing the course of the history of Ukrainian Diplomacy formation and development. The author highlights the roots of its formation, reconsidering a long way of its development that coincided with the formation of basic elements of Ukrainian statehood that came into existence as a result of the war of national liberation – the Ukrainian Central Rada (the Central Council of Ukraine). Later, the Ukrainian or so-called State the Hetmanate was under study. The Directorat (Directory) of Ukraine, being a provisional collegiate revolutionary state committee of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, was given a thorough study. Of particular interest for the research are diplomatic activities of the West Ukrainian People`s Republic. Noteworthy, the author emphasizes on the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic’s foreign policy, forced by the Bolshevist Russia. A further important implication is both the challenges of the Ukrainian statehood establishing and Ukraine’s functioning as a state, first and foremost, stemmed from the immaturity and conscience-unawareness of the Ukrainian society, that, ultimately, has led to the fact, that throughout the twentieth century Ukraine as a statehood, being incorporated into the Soviet Union, could hardly be recognized as a sovereign state. Our research suggests that since the beginning of the Ukrainian Diplomacy establishment and its further evolution, it used to be unprecedentedly fabricated and forged. On a wider level, the research is devoted to centennial fight of Ukraine against Russian violence and aggression since the WWI, when in 1917 the Russian Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, started real Russian war against Ukraine. Apropos, in the about-a-year-negotiation run, Ukraine, eventually, failed to become sovereign. Remarkably, Ukraine finally gained its independence just in late twentieth century. Nowadays, Russia still regards Ukraine as a part of its own strategic orbit,waging out a carrot-and-stick battle. Keywords: The Ukrainian People’s Republic, the State of Ukraine, the Hetmanate, the Direcorat (Directory) of Ukraine, the West Ukrainian People`s Republic, the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, Ukraine, the Bolshevist Russia, the Russian Federation, Ukrainian diplomacy

Ballet in the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Performing Artists ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union developed cultural exchange programs, in which they sent performing artists abroad in order to generate goodwill for their countries. Ballet companies were frequently called on to serve in these programs, particularly in the direct Soviet-American exchange. This book analyzes four of the early ballet exchange tours, demonstrating how this series of encounters changed both geopolitical relations and the history of dance. The ballet tours were enormously popular. Performances functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. At the same time, Soviet and American audiences did not understand ballet in the same way. As American companies toured in the Soviet Union and vice versa, audiences saw the performances through the lens of their own local aesthetics. Ballet in the Cold War introduces the concept of transliteration to understand this process, showing how much power viewers wielded in the exchange and explaining how the dynamics of the Cold War continue to shape ballet today.

Out of Empire into Socialist Modernity

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-70
Author(s):  
Steffi Marung
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this article the Soviet-African Modern is presented through an intellectual history of exchanges in a triangular geography, outspreading from Moscow to Paris to Port of Spain and Accra. In this geography, postcolonial conditions in Eastern Europe and Africa became interconnected. This shared postcolonial space extended from the Soviet South to Africa. The glue for the transregional imagination was an engagement with the topos of backwardness. For many of the participants in the debate, the Soviet past was the African present. Focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, three connected perspectives on the relationship between Soviet and African paths to modernity are presented: First, Soviet and Russian scholars interpreting the domestic (post)colonial condition; second, African academics revisiting the Soviet Union as a model for development; and finally, transatlantic intellectuals connecting postcolonial narratives with socialist ones. Drawing on Russian archives, the article furthermore demonstrates that Soviet repositories hold complementary records for African histories.

Ivanov, Viacheslav Ivanovich (1866–1949)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bird
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Classical Scholar ◽  
Literary Movement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Aleksandr Blok

Viacheslav Ivanov was a leading theoretician of the symbolist literary movement and a prominent figure in the renaissance of religious thought in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century. A classical scholar by training, and erudite poet by vocation, Ivanov became known as an acolyte of Nietzsche. Later, along with the other ‘younger’ symbolists Aleksandr Blok and Andrei Belyi, Ivanov presented himself as a disciple of Vladimir Solov’ëv’s idealistic metaphysics and theurgic aesthetics. In the 1910s Ivanov achieved a proto-hermeneutic conception of art, which was the basis of his groundbreaking writings on Dostoevskii. After emigrating from the Soviet Union in 1924 Ivanov became a Roman Catholic and achieved some notoriety in Catholic intellectual circles between the wars. His powerful influence is evident in many contemporary and later thinkers in fields ranging from aesthetics and literary theory to philosophy and theology.

scholarly journals Astral Karate as a Phenomenon of Late-Soviet Esoteric Underground

Open Theology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanislav Panin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spiritual Leader ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Eastern Cultures ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Object ◽  
Spiritual Movement

AbstractThe article concentrates on the history of Astral Karate, its doctrine and sources. Astral Karate was a late-Soviet eclectic spiritual movement based on esoteric interpretations of martial arts and yoga. The term “Astral Karate” had spread in the 1980s thanks to spiritual leader and underground esoteric author Valery Averianov who called himself Guru Var Avera. On one hand, the movement reflected global tendencies, such as growing interest in Eastern cultures and spirituality, that characterized esoteric groups in the USSR as well as in the USA and Europe during this period. On the other hand, esoteric groups in the Soviet Union developed in isolation from European and American esoteric currents and under unique ideological and legal pressures. The combination of these factors contributed to the originality of late-Soviet esoteric currents and therefore makes Astral Karate an important object of academic inquiry, which helps us to understand the specifics of Soviet spirituality and its further developments in post- Soviet states

The Soviet Dimension of Italian Communism

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Drake
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Abundant Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

This essay reviews two books that provide diverging views of the relationship between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Soviet Union. The first book, a lengthy collection of declassified documents from the former Soviet archives, provides abundant evidence of the PCI's crucial dependence on Soviet funding. No Communist party outside the Soviet bloc depended more on Soviet funding over the years than the PCI did. Vast amounts of money flowed from Moscow into the PCI's coffers. The Italian Communists maintained their heavy reliance on Soviet funding until the early 1980s. The other book discussed here a memoir by Gianni Cervetti, a former senior PCI financial official seeks to defend the party's policy and to downplay the importance of the aid provided by Moscow. Nonetheless, even Cervetti's book makes clear, if only inadvertently, that the link with the Soviet Union helped spark the broader collapse of Marxism-Leninism as a mobilizing force.

scholarly journals Swedish political attitudes towards Baltic independence in the short twentieth century [Kokkuvõte: Rootsi poliitilised hoiakud Balti riikide iseseisvuse suhtes lühikesel 20. sajandil]

2016 ◽  
pp. 397
Author(s):  
Mart Kuldkepp
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article considers the history of Swedish attitudes towards Baltic independence during the short twentieth century (1914–91), focusing primarily on the years when Baltic independence was gained (1918–20) and regained (1989–91). The former was characterized by Swedish skepticism towards the ability of the Baltic states to retain their independence long-term, considering the inevitable revival of Russian power. Sweden became one of the very few Western countries to officially recognize the incorporation of the Baltic states in the Soviet Union in the Second World War. During the Cold War, Sweden gained a reputation for its policy of activist internationalism and support for democratization in the Third World, but for security-related reasons it ignored breaches of human rights and deficit of democracy in its immediate neighborhood, the Soviet Union and the Baltic republics. However, in 1989–91 the unprecedented decline in Soviet influence, the value-based approach in international relations, feelings of guilt over previous pragmatism, and changes in domestic politics encouraged Sweden to support Baltic independence, and to take on the role of an active manager of the Baltic post-soviet transition.

scholarly journals BORIS TISHCHENKO. THE TWELVE. CREATION HISTORY AND BASIC COMPOSING PRINCIPLES

Globus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2(59)) ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
Yuri Serov
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Music Score ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Symphonic Music

The article is devoted to the history of the creation and music score of the ballet Twelve based on the poem by A. Blok by the outstanding Russian composer of the second half of the twentieth century Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko. The ballet was staged by the famous Soviet choreographer Leonid Jacobson back in 1964 and became, in fact, the first avant-garde ballet in the Soviet Union. Critics noted Tishchenko’s bright modern symphonic music and Jacobson’s free plastics, which “became a breath of clean air in the rarefied atmosphere of classical epigonism”.

Russia and South Africa: Historical Memory. Part 1

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-32
Author(s):  
Ndlovu Sifiso Mxolisi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

In order to prove that the relationship between South Africa and Russia began well before the democratic dispensation in South Africa, the author is of the belief that the present Russian state inherited the mantle of the former Soviet Union state and therefore the two place names are used interchangeably. The timeline for this article begins from the 1960s to the present, particularly the era after the formation of post-1994 democratic South Africa. The themes to be analysed relate to the writing of a brief ‘diplomatic’ history of South Africa and the Soviet Union and will focus on progressive internationalism, diplomacy, foreign policy, communism and anti-communism in South Africa.

The British Army of the Rhine

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Speiser
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
British Army ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Relationship

Between 1945 and 1957, West Germany made a dizzying pivot from Nazi bastion to Britain's Cold War ally against the Soviet Union. Successive London governments, though often faced with bitter public and military opposition, tasked the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) to serve as a protecting force while strengthening West German integration into the Western defense structure. This book charts the BAOR's fraught transformation from occupier to ally by looking at the charged nexus where British troops and their families interacted with Germany's civilian population. Examining the relationship on many levels, the book ranges from how British mass media representations of Germany influenced BAOR troops to initiatives taken by the Army to improve relations. It also weighs German perceptions, surveying clashes between soldiers and civilians and comparing the popularity of the British services with that of the other occupying powers. As the book shows, the BAOR's presence did not improve the relationship between British servicemen and the German populace, but it did prevent further deterioration during a crucial and dangerous period of the early Cold War. An incisive look at an under-researched episode, this book sheds new light on Anglo-German diplomatic, political, and social relations after 1945, and evaluates their impact on the wider context of European integration in the postwar era.

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