scholarly journals Working-Class Literature(s) Volume II. Historical and International Perspectives

10.16993/bbf ◽  
2020 ◽  

The aim of this collection is to contribute to the forging of a more robust, politically useful, and theoretically elaborate understanding of working-class literature(s). These essays map a substantial terrain: the history of working-class literature(s) in Argentina, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Africa and Ireland. Together with the essays in a previous volume – which cover Russia/The Soviet Union, The USA, Finland, Sweden, The UK, and Mexico – they give a complex picture of working-class literature(s) from an international perspective, without losing sight of national specificities. By capturing a wide range of definitions and literatures, the two volumes give a broad and rich picture of the many-facetted phenomenon of working-class literature(s), disrupt narrow understandings of the concept and phenomenon, as well as identify and discuss some of the most important theoretical and historical questions brought to the fore by the study of this literature.If read as stand-alone chapters, each contribution gives an overview of the history and research of a particular nation’s working-class literature. If read as a whole (which we hope you do), they contribute toward a more complex understanding of the global phenomenon of working-class literature(s).

Author(s):  
Małgorzata Drwal

In this chapter I present an overview of the most prominent trends in South African working-class literature from the beginning of the 20th century until 1994. Since its emergence, South African working class was a heterogeneous formation which encompassed diverse ethnicities, both of European and non-European origin. Each of them created its own literature and culture, using various languages, incorporating traditional elements and means of expression, and merging them with borrowed foreign discourses and literary devices belonging to the repertoire of socialist literature that had been created mostly in the Soviet Union, the USA and other European countries. Consequently, South African working-class literature can be conceived of as conglomerate of heteroglot hybrid forms and manifestations of a subversive counter-discourse of protest literature. The forms presented here include writings of European socialists commenting on South African situation, novels utilizing the Jim goes to Joburg plot pattern, drama incorporating the Soviet socialist realism and references to the Afrikaans farm novel, Afrikaans folk tunes functioning as protest songs, and black workers praise poetry based on tribal oral conventions. As a carrier of a new working-class identity, this literature promoted a modern urban model which, nevertheless, relied on the continuity with local rural traditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (21) ◽  
pp. 9-28
Author(s):  
Kristo Karvinen

The 1939 invasion of Finland by the Soviet Union attracted more than just journalists to the frigid north. Thousands of volunteers around the world rallied under the Finnish flag, willing to risk their lives for a foreign country. Over ten thousand arrived before the end of the war, with more on their way, coming from Hungary and Estonia, Canada and the USA, Sweden and the UK. Were they all ardent anticommunists or did they have other motives? This article seeks to answer that question, utilising Finnish and British archives as well as contemporary research into war volunteering. The origins and motives of the volunteers are examined, revealing that their motives ran a wide gamut, including such reasons as anti-communism, linguistic fraternity and spirit of adventure, to name a few.


1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Farquharson

The object of this article is to examine the impact of the Marshall Plan (ERP) on the strategy of reparations from Germany that was pursued by the British government in the postwar era. In order to put this into some kind of context it will first be necessary to provide a brief survey of the mechanism of reparations and then of the rationale behind the system of financial assistance afforded by the USA to Western Europe known as Marshall Aid (its title derived from the US Secretary of State, George Marshall, who pioneered the scheme). The idea of extracting some form of compensation from Germany, to be apportioned among the victors, came to be debated in Whitehall during hostilities, but little attempt was made to coordinate plans among the Allies until the conference at Yalta in February 1945. No consensus could be attained there among the participants (the UK, the USA and the USSR). Stalin lodged a claim for $10 billion of reparations in ten years, which entailed that the Soviet Union would be allocated half of all payments from Germany. The lack of assent from the Western powers led to a new body, the Allied Reparations Commission (ARC), being convened in Moscow, which also failed to reach a conclusion. Reparations were then settled at the Potsdam Conference between the same three powers in July–August 1945.


2020 ◽  
pp. 245-265
Author(s):  
Арсен Артурович Григорян

Цель данной статьи - описать условия, в которых Армянская Апостольская Церковь вступила в эпоху правления Н. С. Хрущёва, начавшуюся в 1953 г. По содержанию статью можно поделить на две части: в первой даются сведения о количестве приходов на территории Советского Союза и за его пределами, а также о составе армянского духовенства в СССР; во второй излагаются проблемы, существовавшие внутри Армянской Церкви, и рассматриваются их причины. Методы исследования - описание и анализ. Ценность исследования заключается в использовании ранее неопубликованных документов Государственного архива Российской Федерации и Национального архива Армении. По итогам изучения фактического материала выделяются основные проблемы Армянской Апостольской Церкви на 1953 г.: финансовый дефицит, конфликт армянских католикосатов и стремление враждующих СССР и США использовать церковь в своих политических целях. The purpose of this article is to describe the conditions in which the Armenian Apostolic Church entered the epoch of the reign of N. S. Khrushchev, which began in 1953. The article can be divided into two parts: first one gives information about the number of parishes in the territory of the Soviet Union and beyond, and about the structure of the Armenian clergy in the USSR; the second one sets out the problems that existed in the Armenian Church and discusses their causes. Research methods - description and analysis. The value of the study lies in the use of previously unpublished documents of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the National Archive of Armenia. Based on the results of studying the materials, the main problems of the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1953 are: financial deficit, the conflict of Armenian Catholicosates and the eagerness of USSR and the USA, that feuded with each other, to use the Сhurch for their political purposes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Eva Cendon ◽  
John Butcher

This general edition of the journal provides insights and results of research employing a wide range of approaches and perspectives on widening participation and lifelong learning. Studies from across the UK and international sector utilise different methodological approaches, and as such are particularly interesting, with diverse methods and ways of analysis, including phenomenographic, narrative, and thematic analysis. Overall, the articles range from exploratory case studies and small-scale research to wider range and broad scale studies, highlighting different facets and perspectives. Furthermore, the articles in this volume cover a broad spectrum of institutions and places involved in widening participation, with an emphasis on the (higher) education sector in the UK balanced by international perspectives. The first seven empirical articles are based on research activities in a secondary school, a youth centre, in further education colleges (usually focusing on post-compulsory secondary or pre-university education), in so-called post-92 universities (new(er) universities, formerly Polytechnics and teacher training colleges), and last but not least in a research intensive Russell Group university. They reported challenges from the specific local contexts of different regions in England, from the South (Chichester) to London to the North (Carlisle), and can usefully be framed in the context of international discussions appearing later in the journal.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Peacock

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself. Design/Methodology/Approach – Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s. Findings – Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits. Originality/Value – This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodric Braithwaite

Sir Rodric Braithwaite was educated at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, from where he went to serve in HM Diplomatic Service, having worked in Jakarta, Moscow, Washington, Warsaw, Rome, and Brussels, where he was a member of the British delegation to the European Community. From 1988 to 1992, Sir Rodric served as HM Ambassador in the Soviet Union during the decisive years of the Perestroika and the first British ambassador in Russia. Subsequently, he was appointed foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister in the second John Major ministry and chaired the UK Joint Intelligence Committee between 1992 and 1993. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1994. As a career diplomat, Sir Rodric gained decades of insight into the troubled relations between Russia and West, having taken part in numerous negotiations on arms control. His affinity with the decision-making circles in both Russia and Britain alongside with the mastery of the Russian language allow him to skillfully dissect the underlying causes of ups-and-downs in Moscow’s relationship with the West, employing the works of both English- and Russian-speaking analysts. Among his recent books are Across the Moscow River (2002), Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War (2006), Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–1989 (2012), Armageddon and Paranoia: The Nuclear Confrontation (2017). In this essay, Sir Rodric reminisces of the years spent as a diplomat and provides his view on the usefulness and applicability of historical lessons while devising a foreign policy course.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Zava

Writings by three Italian journalist-authors provide an evocative picture of the Soviet Union during the ’50s and ’60s, interpreted through different personal styles, analytical systems and reporting techniques. In close relationship with the many-sided reality of the Soviet landscape, the meeting with the ‘other’ (geographically, culturally and in personal terms) allows Enrico Emanuelli, Carlo Levi and Guido Piovene to realise individual volumes of reportage (Emanuelli and Levi) or newspaper articles (Piovene) poised between travel literature and the informative-journalistic dimension.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-182
Author(s):  
Alexander Ivanovich Repinetskiy

The paper is devoted to history of childrens home 25 established in 1946 on the territory of the Kuibyshev Region. Children of Russian emigrants living in Austria were accommodated there. These children were transferred to representatives of the Soviet authorities by the American administration. Under the terms of the agreements between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain signed at the Yalta conference (1945) people with the Soviet nationality were transferred to the Soviet Union. Children of Russian emigrants born in Austria didnt belong to this category but despite it they were transferred to the Soviet Union. Local authorities didnt know what to do with repatriated children. That is why the childrens home was established in a remote rural area; life and material conditions of its inhabitants were heavy: there was no necessary furniture or school supplies. Its tutors and staff were in a more difficult situation. Some of them lost their jobs. Some children were returned to parents. Unfortunately, available documents do not allow tracking the future of the children from this childrens home.


Author(s):  
K. V. Shlykov

The article explores the significance of Mikhail Gorbachev's first journey to the UK in December 1984 for the East-West relations. The visit was initiated by Margaret Thatcher who wanted to get acquainted with the potential Soviet leader as she hoped to become a trusted intermediary between Moscow and Washington. The revitalization of contacts with the USSR was a part of Britain's resurgence as a major world player after the Falklands victory. The discussions in London focused on the issue of strategic stability, though they could only serve to give the parties a better understanding of each other's position, as no political agreement could be reached due to the nature of the visit and the fact that any agreement on the subject had to be between the Soviet Union and the United States. The bilateral relations issues being discussed included mostly economic cooperation and such problems as human rights in the USSR and Soviet assistance to the British miners' strike. Gorbachev's speech on "new political thinking" and "a common European home", expressions first used during the visit to Uk, rang hollow to London, however Thatcher had the impression that she could deal with the Soviet politician in future. The British public opinion also saw Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife favourably. Later statements of Lady Thatcher and Gorbachev's critics on the meeting being defining for the foreign policy of the perestroika era should be seen as exaggerated, as the demise of the Communist system and the USSR were not foreseen by anyone in 1984, either in London or in Moscow.


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