scholarly journals RUSSIAN YOUTH ABOUT RUSSIA, UKRAINE, AND BELARUS — IMAGES OF COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 318-324
Author(s):  
Irina Snezhkova

The main goal of the present examination was to study the ideas of the Russian youth about Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus under existing social and political conditions. To this end, in 2018-2020, in a number of Moscow universities, sociological research was carried out, studying the images of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus as perceived by Russian students. As far back as 30 years ago, the Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians had been perceived as three tight-knit ethnic groups within a broader category of East Slavs, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, three independent states were formed, whose fates began to develop in different ways. At the present time complicated by all sorts of political controversies between the three countries under consideration, it seems important to know how these countries, their leaders, and peoples appear to the young people of Russia, what their attitude is to certain significant recent political events, namely the events in Ukraine, and to the opposition movement in their own country. The main research method was a sociological survey plus a certain amount of psychological testing. In total, 600 people were interviewed in several major universities in Moscow. The materials were then processed using the SPSS computer program. Also, the students were asked to present their perceptions of the country, its people, and its leadership in drawings, making the images as emblematic as possible. The results of the study showed that despite the difficult socio-political situation, Russian youth demonstrate a rather positive attitude towards their own country and its leadership; they regret the conflict in Ukraine, sympathize with its people, and condemn the ongoing civil war in the east of the country. Russians perceive Belarus as a friendly country with which it is necessary to strengthen cooperation. The research materials may be useful to specialists dealing with the ethnic issues in the three countries and with their political, economic, and cultural construction.

2009 ◽  
Vol 35 (S1) ◽  
pp. 237-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL KUBICEK

AbstractThe Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was designed to manage the collapse of the Soviet Union and foster post-Soviet cooperation in political, economic, and security spheres. Over a decade into its existence, most analysts would rate it a failure: many post-Soviet states do not participate in CIS ventures, the institutional machinery of the CIS is weak, and Russia, the most dominant post-Soviet state, has tended to favour bi-lateral relationships over multi-lateral institutions. Why is this the case? This article looks at the CIS through the prism of theories of regionalism, demonstrating that the CIS was handicapped on many fronts, including emergent multi-polarity in the post-Soviet space and domestic-level political considerations in many post-Soviet states.


Author(s):  
Andrei Korobkov

Democratic transitions are especially complex in federal states and countries with multinational populations and compact, ethnic minority settlements; the increasing ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural heterogeneity of a society complicates the achievement of political compromises. In this sense, the post-Soviet newly independent states (NIS) face an especially complex transition pattern. Roman Szporluk, for example, enumerates three different transformations: the dissolution of the imperial structure and the resulting formation of independent states, the transition from a centralized to a market economic system, and the transition from authoritarianism to (at least ideally) a political democracy, with all three "combined or fused in the chaotic and extremely difficult process of formation and transformation of states and nations. " Thus the transition in the NIS is marked by simultaneous developments in the political, economic, social, religious, ideological, and cultural spheres, including the creation or re-creation of ethnic and other identities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-110
Author(s):  
David Erkomaishvili

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 allowed independent states, which emerged in its place, to construct their own alignments. The choice of the case for empirical analysis had been made based on several unique characteristics. Orthodox Alliance Theory had almost never properly addressed alignments in the post-Soviet space due to the lack of access to information during the Soviet period - along with the structure of the state: only Soviet alignment policies were taken into consideration, instead of those of its constituent republics as well - and modest interest of alliance theorists in the region. Continued disintegration of the post-Soviet space, which has not stopped with the collapse of the Soviet Union but keeps fragmenting further, creates a unique setting for researching the adequacy of Alliance Theory's classic assumptions as well as developing new approaches. This work traces the development of the post-Soviet system of collective security and its subsequent transformation into a series of bilateral security relations, along with the shortfall of multilateralism.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-145
Author(s):  
Coleman Mehta

After relations between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia broke down in 1948, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) devoted a good deal of attention to Yugoslavia. Initially, however, the Truman administration was reluctant to provide extensive security assistance to the regime of Josip Broz Tito, who until 1948 had been a brutal Stalinist. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 changed the situation. The United States developed much closer political, economic, and military ties with Yugoslavia, and the CIA established a formal agreement of cooperation with the Yugoslav Ministry of State Security, especially on intelligence-sharing and covert operations. U.S. officials were particularly concerned about ensuring that Yugoslavia would be able to defend itself, if necessary, against a Soviet invasion.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-102
Author(s):  
Csilla Fedinec ◽  
István Csernicskó

Abstract Based on the data of sociological research, the analysis of the linguistic landscapes of Transcarpathian cities, and quotations from travel guides, this paper illustrates that in Transcarpathia, a significant part of the population—regardless of ethnicity—live their lives not according to the official Kyiv time (eet), but according to the local time (cet). The difference between official centralized time and “local time” appeared in Transcarpathia when the region became annexed to the Soviet Union. Yet before the Second World War, each state in the region used Central European time. The Soviet regime introduced msk, which was two hours ahead. The distinction between “local time” and central time has been maintained since Transcarpathia became part of the newly independent Ukraine. The population of the region has been urged to use a different time zone for a relatively short time from a historical point of view. The persistence of “local time” is also strengthened by the fact that it contributes to the image of Transcarpathia as a particular, specific region of Ukraine. “Local time” in Transcarpathia has become part of the region’s tourism brand.


Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky

This chapter highlights how the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union initiated a new period in the history of the Jews in the area. Poland was now a fully sovereign country, and Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Moldova also became independent states. Post-imperial Russia faced the task of creating a new form of national identity. This was to prove more difficult than in other post-imperial states since, unlike Britain and France, the tsarist empire and its successor, the Soviet Union, had not so much been the ruler of a colonial empire as an empire itself. All of these countries now embarked, with differing degrees of enthusiasm, on the difficult task of creating liberal democratic states with market economies. For the Jews of the area, the new political situation allowed both the creation and development of Jewish institutions and the fostering of Jewish cultural life in much freer conditions, but also facilitated emigration to Israel, North America, and western Europe on a much larger scale.


1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 179-185
Author(s):  
Arthur Downey ◽  
Leonore Burts

I think Professor Jacobsen’s analysis of the unity, the comprehensiveness of the forward movement of Soviet policy and its military, diplomatic, political, economic, cultural advance may be quite true, but I wonder if we are not really only talking about a difference in degree from the U.S. system. I think the fact that Soviet policy is conceived of as a web, and that individual geographic areas or political, military, economic issues are not viewed or treated in isolation, is a concept or a method of conducting policy that is not peculiar to the Soviet Union. We have the same thing, with perhaps only a slight difference in degree as a result in part of the ability of the Soviet system to centralize.


Author(s):  
Geoff Eley

Certain facts about postwar Europe seem self-evidently true. Undoubtedly the most salient was the division of Europe and the political, economic, social, and cultural antinomies that separated western capitalism from Soviet-style communism in the overarching context of the Cold War. If the Cold War itself stretched across four decades, from the heightening of international tensions in 1947–1948 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989–1991, the postwar settlement's reliable solidities had already been breaking apart in the 1970s. The global economic downturn of 1973–1974 ended the postwar boom, shelving its promises of permanent growth and continuously unfolding prosperity. In those terms, the core of the postwar settlement lies in the years 1947–1973. This article explores the single most striking particularity of the post-1945 settlement, namely the centrality acquired by organised labour for the polities, social imaginaries, and public cultures of postwar European societies. First, it discusses democracy as a cultural project during 1945–1968. The article then looks at corporatism and social democracy, and concludes by assessing patterns of stability in Europe during the postwar period.


Author(s):  
Alexander Prusin

Examines German rule imposed on Serbia after the collapse in Yugoslavia in April 1941. Obsessed with the preparation for the war against the Soviet Union, Hitler relegated Serbia to a source-depot of food supplies and raw materials within the Third Reich’s political-economic space. As a hinterland for the German forces in the Balkans, Serbia became a “state of emergency,” whereby the system of governing was simplified to the direct chain of command from top to bottom for the purpose of fulfilling specific tasks. Initially, the April catastrophe facilitated the image of Germany as an invincible military power and seemingly extinguished popular will to resistance.


Author(s):  
Tomasz LANDMANN ◽  
Piotr BASTKOWSKI

The article attempts to analyse the practical examples of closer political, economic and military relations between Germany and Soviet Russia, and then the Soviet Union, in the years 1921-1926. The paper lays out the thesis that the closer German-Soviet political, economic and military relations, in the years 1921-1926, posed a significant threat to the security of the Second Polish Republic. To justify the above thesis both the literature and source materials were examined, including first of all the materials held in the Central Military Archives (Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe) in Warszawa-Rembertów. The materials gathered in the groups of records of the Second Department of the Polish Army High Command and the Collections of Russian records were found out to be of key importance. The collected archival materials made it possible to identify different planes of cooperation between the Germans and the Soviets in the discussed period and to establish to what extent the Polish military intelligence was aware of the feasibility and effects of such closer relations, resulting in a direct threat to the security of the Polish state. On the basis of the presented information it can be stated that the Polish military intelligence provided an accurate diagnosis of the examples of German-Soviet cooperation, often anti-Polish in its form and character. In the years 1921-1926, this cooperation was particularly intensified, posing a threat to the security of the Second Polish Republic and leading to negotiations regarding both the western and the eastern borders of Poland established after the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Riga.


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