Conditions of the National Elites Loyalty towards the Central Government in the Soviet Period of Russian History

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4-1) ◽  
pp. 230-248
Author(s):  
Sergey Filippov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Population ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Regional Administration ◽  
The Baltic

The article deals with the analysis of the Soviet national policy from a historical perspective with a focus on investigating into conditions of the loyalty of national elites towards the central government in the last period of the USSR existence. The indicators of the low level loyalty are as follows: supporting the ideas of national sovereignty and independence, participating in the national movement by ruling cadres, influential intellectuals and population. The author shows low sympathy of both groups of representatives: elites and broad population to nationalist ideas. The analysis is based on comparing contrastive cases – the Soviet elites of the Baltic republics (Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia) and Belorussia in their interactions with the central government as well as local population in the period from 1945 to 1991. These republics, their population and elites were similar regarding some important aspects such as historical and cultural as well as demographic characteristics in the case of Belorussia and Lithuania; some important features of the industry (big export-oriented enterprises) regarding Estonia, Latvia and Belorussia. At the same time, these cases showed a different level of the loyalty towards the Union center, namely, relatively high among the Belorussian Soviet ruling cadres and population and relatively low in the Baltic republics by the end of 1980s. The important aspect of the Soviet national policy was establishing new national elites, educational and cultural institutions preserving their native languages as well as the promotion of native cadres into the positions of power in the regional administration. In some respects, this policy was similar to the “indirect rule” implemented in the imperial period of Russian history and consisted in the cooperation between the central government and local elites as the main approach to administrating a multinational state. However, in comparison with the previous practice tending to include national elites in the imperial nobility, the post revolutionary approach considered the creation of national elites through promoting local cultural and educational institutions that offer quite prestigious but specific positions occupied mostly by representatives of the respective ethnic group. Creating local elites reduced the competition for “universal” positions since socialization and career of “national staff” were oriented towards national institutes. However, increasing numbers of “national staff” with limited positions for them had negative social consequences (elite overproduction). Intra-elite tension increased due to the migration from other regions (in the case of Latvia and Estonia). The other reason of this phenomenon was pursuing socialization strategies oriented to the places of origin (in the case of Lithuania). The attractiveness of the Baltic republics both for local population and migrants from other regions of the USSR was caused by a relatively high level of living standards in these union republics. Location of big export-oriented enterprises in the territory of Belorussia created conditions for preferring socialization strategies oriented towards integration with the Soviet Union economy and, therefore, enhanced loyalty towards the USSR center from both elites and population. Besides, the administrative apparatus of the Soviet Belorussia was recruited extensively among participants of the Soviet partisan movement 1941–1944 what explains the devotion of the Belorussian elite to the Soviet symbols and values. At the same time, the base of the legitimization of the Soviet Lithuanian elite was its ability to control the anti-Soviet (nationalist) movement as well supporting national culture and language.

The “Flight” of Soviet Elites to Opposition in the Late 1980s – Early 1990s: Macro-Sociological Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-1) ◽  
pp. 92-109
Author(s):  
Sergey Filippov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
Virgin Land ◽  
High Level ◽  
Party State

The article deals with investigation into the conditions of the defection of the national Soviet party-state functionaries to opposition in the USSR (late 1980s – early 1980s) that is an important indicator of the loyalty of the national elites towards the central government. The analysis is based on comparing two contrastive cases – the Soviet elites of Latvia and those of Kazakhstan in their interactions with the central government as well as local population. Despite seemingly obvious cultural and historical differences, both cases are similar regarding some important aspects such as socio-demographic, economic as well as cultural dynamics in the late Soviet period. In both republics, the proportion of migrants in the whole population as well as in the elites was relatively high. The intensive migration in the post-war period was a result of the rapid industrialization and the Virgin Land campaign in the case of Kazakhstan. The Soviet elites both of Latvia and of Kazakhstan were loyal to the Union center, Russian-speaking and more international than national oriented. Besides, the national movements in both republics were practically nonexistent at the beginning of the perestroika. Nevertheless, many Latvian national ruling cadres joined the opposition in the late 1980s – early 1991s whereas Kazakh national elites remained mostly loyal to the Union center up to the dissolution of the USSR (Kazakhstan declared its independence only on 16 December 1991, as the last republic to leave the USSR) – although Kazakh national party-state functionaries did not have less reasons to get rid of the tough control from Moscow than national elites of Soviet Latvia. As the theoretical basis the author applies the R. Collins` state-centered theory of ethnos elaborated in the framework of the Weberian paradigm. The analysis showed that decreasing loyalty of the Latvian national elites in the late 1980s – early 1991s was due to the success of the protest movement in this republic including the violent confrontation with its rivals in January 1991 (“The Barricades”). A broad support of the protest movement striving for the reestablishment of the independence from the Soviet Union was based on anti-immigration ideological alternative to official Soviet internationalism attracting different social and ethnic groups of Latvian population. A relatively high level of the loyalty of the Kazakh national elites to the central government was caused by the effective suppression of the Kazakh youth riots in December 1986 that triggered the purge of the national ruling cadres in Kazakhstan initiated by Moscow. A relatively low social support of the protest movement in the republic was due to the lack of a broad ideological basis that could create solidarity between different social and ethnic groups that made up the population of Kazakhstan. Besides, the protest of 1986 with Kazakh students as the main participants was perceived by local population in the logic of ethno-territorial conflicts very common in the late Soviet Kazakhstan and evoked therefore not solidarity but fear and anger.

scholarly journals Between Berlin and Moscow: Polish Western Thought in the Twenty-Year Interwar Period

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Masnyk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The Russian Empire

This article deals with the professional discussion about the so-called “difficult questions” of Russian history that involves historians and teachers in the now independent republics of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Block. Both academic publications and teaching books are used as primary sources for the study. In the first section, the author studies several problems connected with the origin of Russian statehood, the Varangian question, and civilizational characteristics of East Slavic nations. The second section is devoted to the Russian imperial past and especially to the discourse on colonialism, which is often used as an explanatory model for the imperial period by historians and textbook authors in some of the post-Soviet countries. The third section is concerned with the conception of the 1917 revolution. The author emphasizes the fact that the conception of a continuous revolutionary process (1917–1922) has yet to be accepted by Russian secondary schools. In this part, the author considers several other factors significant for understanding the revolutionary process including issues such as the origins of the First World War and the developmental level of the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century. In the fourth section, the article discusses the conception of the 1930s Soviet modernization along with negative opinions about the Soviet period given by scholars of different former Soviet republics. In the fifth section, the author briefly observes contemporary studies of culture and everyday life. It is concluded that the history of culture is not represented well in Russian school textbooks, and it is also found that the studies on everyday life are often lacking in depth. Discussing various “difficult questions” of Russian history, the author highlights controversial historical ideas and opinions, formulated in the post-Soviet countries during the last decades.

scholarly journals Diseases of the Indigenous Peoples of Yakutia in Photo Projects of the Late XIX ‒ First Third of the XX Centuries

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 108-119
Author(s):  
Stepanova Lena B. ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Northeast Asia ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Foreign Population ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Medical Photography

Disease theme of indigenous population of the Northern national outskirts of Russia, as well as the study of special knowledge in the field of traditional medicine and healing practices, for a long time belonged to the taboo part of knowledge. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a turning point in the visual culture of region, when the picture of diseases was expressed through the camera and became public. There are works of photographers documenting the course of the most dangerous diseases, such as leprosy and external manifestations of mental disorders. The aim of this study is to study external factors that influenced the genesis of the “medical” series of visual images of the population of Northeast Asia. The research methodology is based on a cultural and historical analysis of the events that preceded its appearance and subsequent application in medical practice in order to document the course of diseases in the Soviet period. This article presents the results of a brief review of the prehistory of the “medical” direction in ethnographic photography of the Yakut region. The circle of photographers of the Yakut region is defined, where stories illustrating the diseases that the local population suffered from are reflected. At the beginning of the twentieth century, footage of medical practices and shamanistic rituals for healing were presented in the photo projects by I. V. Popov and A. P. Kurochkin. In the 1920s-1930s. the genre of “medical photography” is represented by the works of the doctor-epidemiologist T. A. Kolpakova, military surgeon E. A. Dubrovin, unknown with the initial “D”, who worked in the medical detachment of the Commission for the Study the Productive Forces of the Yakut Republic (CYR) The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union and the People’s Committee the Health of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The experience of studying this topic serves as a clear illustration of the specifics of the region and in some way confirms the conclusions made by the participants of numerous expeditions that studied the foreign population of the Yakut region and predicted the inevitable extinction in the future. Keywords: medical anthropology, anthropology of disease, visual research, indigenous people, visual text, visual sources

scholarly journals Soviet, post-Soviet and neo-liberal: Governing Russian schools through quality assurance and evaluation

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 398-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galina Gurova
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Soviet Russia

This paper problematizes the dichotomy between neo-liberalism and socialism and the tendency to view the post-socialist condition as a process of convergence with ‘Western’ and ‘global’. It does so by analysing the development and implementation of a quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) policy in school education in the context of the Russian Federation. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian national QAE policy has changed greatly and currently resembles the agendas of transnational organizations in education. At the same time, the national policy and the political discourse on quality continue to draw on Soviet as well as post-Soviet legacies. Juxtaposing the case of Russian QAE policy with theoretical models of post-bureaucratic governance in education, the paper also questions clear-cut distinctions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ governance regimes. The analysis in the paper is guided by two questions: 1) What has changed and what has remained unchanged in Russian education policy with the transition from the Soviet period to current state? and 2) How do different legacies and influences contribute to the QAE policy implemented at the local level? The brief inquiry into the history of Russian QAE policy focuses on three periods: post-war Soviet Russia, the transition period of the 1980–1990s and modern Russia. Recognizing the specific characteristics of each of the reviewed periods, the paper highlights complexities, contradictions and continuities within and between previous and present regimes of education governance in Russia. The analysis of the QAE policy implemented at the local level demonstrates the blending of diverse legacies, and the prevalence of Soviet-era practices in school governance.

From Nationalism to Nation-Building: Latvian Politics and Minority Policy

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Galbreath
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Baltic

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of Latvia, a minority group became a majority and a majority group became a minority. This has been the situation for Latvians and Russians after August 1991. The Baltic States led the way towards first autonomy and then independence. The nationalist movement in the Latvian SSR was primarily a minority nationalist movement. Why do minorities mobilise? Gurr finds that minorities rebel for two reasons: relative deprivation and group mobilisation. Relative deprivation answers the question of why and it characterizes the status of the Latvian language and culture vis-à-vis that of Russia during the Soviet period. While relative deprivation has come under considerable criticism because of its inability to explain when a group will mobilise, the notion can be found in the nationalist rhetoric before and since the restoration of Latvian independence. Group mobilisation goes further in explaining when minorities may assert political claims. Considered in terms of changes in the political opportunity structure, the changing politics of glasnost allowed the nationalist movements to mobilise in the Baltic States.

scholarly journals “Difficult questions” of Russian History: Opinions and Forecasts

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Chubariyan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The Russian Empire

This article deals with the professional discussion about the so-called “difficult questions” of Russian history that involves historians and teachers in the now independent republics of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Block. Both academic publications and teaching books are used as primary sources for the study. In the first section, the author studies several problems connected with the origin of Russian statehood, the Varangian question, and civilizational characteristics of East Slavic nations. The second section is devoted to the Russian imperial past and especially to the discourse on colonialism, which is often used as an explanatory model for the imperial period by historians and textbook authors in some of the post-Soviet countries. The third section is concerned with the conception of the 1917 revolution. The author emphasizes the fact that the conception of a continuous revolutionary process (1917–1922) has yet to be accepted by Russian secondary schools. In this part, the author considers several other factors significant for understanding the revolutionary process including issues such as the origins of the First World War and the developmental level of the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century. In the fourth section, the article discusses the conception of the 1930s Soviet modernization along with negative opinions about the Soviet period given by scholars of different former Soviet republics. In the fifth section, the author briefly observes contemporary studies of culture and everyday life. It is concluded that the history of culture is not represented well in Russian school textbooks, and it is also found that the studies on everyday life are often lacking in depth. Discussing various “difficult questions” of Russian history, the author highlights controversial historical ideas and opinions, formulated in the post-Soviet countries during the last decades.

scholarly journals Astronomy in the former Soviet Union 15 years after the breakup of the USSR

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (SPS5) ◽  
pp. 149-158
Author(s):  
Nikolai G. Bochkarev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
School Students ◽  
International Astronomical ◽  
High Fraction ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Regional Authorities

AbstractDuring the immediate post-Soviet period, the main infrastructure of astronomy over the territory of the former Soviet Union (FSU) was saved, in spite of dramatic decreases in financial support. Overall the situation for FSU astronomy is now stable. In Latvia, the 32-m radio-dish is in working order. This allows it to participate in VLBI programmes. In Russia, all three 32-metre radio dishes of the QUASAR VLBI system are operational, as well as the 2-m telescope with a high-resolution spectrograph (up to resolution R≃ 500 000) and the horizontal solar telescope (R= 320 000) of the Russian-Ukrainian Observatory on Peak Terskol (Caucasus, altitude 3100 m). However the situation with the observatory itself is worrying, because of the regional authorities' attempt to privatize its infrastructure.The process of equipping a number of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (including Russian) observatories with CCD-cameras is in progress. To solve staff problems, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have begun to prepare national specialists in astronomy, and the Baltic States, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine continue to prepare astronomers.Teaching of astronomy at schools is obligatory only in the Ukraine and partially in the Baltic states. To maintain a “common astronomical area”, the Eurasian Astronomical Society (EAAS) continues its programme of reduced-price subscription to Russian-language astronomical journals and magazines in the territory of FSU, the organization of international conferences and Olympiads for school students, and lectures for school teachers and planetarium lecturers, etc.Telescopes in Russia and other CIS territories permit to monitor an object more then 12 hours and can be used in global monitoring programmes. The Central Asian sites have some of the very best astro-climates in the world. They are similar to (or a little better than) the well known Chilean sites (median seeing 0.7′′, very high fraction of clear nights, no light pollution and no high wind). It is imperative that these sites be protected and intensively used by the international astronomical community.

scholarly journals Sublime Theology of the Decline of the Soviet Empire. Akat K. Belykh

Discourse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 20-36
Author(s):  
E. G. Sokolov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Port Royal ◽  
The Soviet Union

Introduction. Socio-political disciplines are an important component of the Humanities of the Soviet period of Russian history. Scientific communism, introduced as a compulsory subject in all Higher education institutions of the USSR in the last 30 years of the state's existence, was considered as the final expression of all the theoretical propositions of Marxism-Leninism. The article attempts to consider Scientific communism as a speculative speculative construction that, on the one hand, reproduces the terminological, logical, semantic and operational regulations of classical philosophical systems, and on the other hand, is a privileged mechanism of discursive production. As a typical example of how and through what tools the doctrine is legitimized, the texts of the work of A. K. Belykh, who for almost 30 years headed the Department of the theory of scientific communism at the faculty of philosophy of LSU (now SPBU).Methodology and sources. Methodologically, the work is based on a philosophical analysis of texts representative of the epoch (D. de Tracy, grammar of Port Royal, Soviet Russian philosophers who worked in the Marxist-Leninist tradition, monographs by A. K. Belykh), included in the approved canonical corpus of Marxism-Leninism.Results and discussion. Scientific communism, now virtually removed from historical memory, was an interesting example of how social thought evolved during the Soviet period of Russian history. The corpus of socio-political disciplines, which included Marxist-Leninist philosophy (dialectical materialism and historical materialism), political economy, history of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, and scientific communism, was a single complex of speculative doctrine. All these disciplines, positioned as scientific knowledge, can be fully evaluated only in the context of the main trends in the development of social and philosophical knowledge of the New time, set by the Enlightenment era. Symbolic points of reference here can be considered projects of ”universal grammar” (Port Royal) and ”ideology” (Destute de Tracy).Conclusion. Scientific communism is not an accidental, but characteristic of Russian thought, intellectual construct. Collective, i. e. a large number of people are involved in its implementation, which means it can be considered as a well-formed direction of social thought. Among the historical analogs that use the same strategic and tactical Arsenal of means of expression and discursive fixation, it can be compared and likened to the wellknown speculative constructs of a theological nature: high scholasticism.

scholarly journals A landscape of lies: Soviet maps in Estonia

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 08002
Author(s):  
Martti Veldi ◽  
Simon Bell
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Military Installations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Border Zones ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

Maps have long been used as ways of understanding the land as a means of defining borders, land ownership, resources, estimating tax-gathering potential and for defensive purposes. Many of the national mapping agencies originated as arms of the military. When a new regime takes over a country it may decide to prepare its own set of maps – not least for defensive purposes – and to restrict who has access to these maps. When the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States in 1945 – and these became front-line areas during the Cold War, with large areas devoted to military installations and border zones – a whole new set of maps were created. We took a sample of maps of Estonia from the inter-war years and from the period of political and military occupation from 1945-1991. The Soviet army maps became freely available in the post-Soviet period and studying them and comparing them with the older maps reveals the way the land was perceived. Military maps were produced using different projections and scales, especially regarding the topography and other features relevant for military operations. The maps included deliberate mistakes and if publicly available they contained many blank spaces to hide sensitive areas and to pretend they did not exist. We also found that maps played a key role in planning future landscapes – kolkhoz maps showed how Estonia was foreseen as a complete planned system covering the whole country outside urban areas.

Victory Day in Modern Odessa: A Conflict Between Two Concepts of Memory

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
Ирина Юрьевна Ямпольская
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Symbolic Action ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
History Of

Формирование идентичности в современной Украине связано с выработкой отношения ко многим аспектам истории, прежде всего истории советского периода. Важнейший момент - отношение к Великой Отечественной войне. В 2014-2015 гг. после резкого ухудшения российско-украинских отношений в рамках декоммунизации была создана новая официальная концепция праздника. Отношение к реформированию Дня Победы является тестом на лояльность не только для политиков и рядовых граждан, но и для целых регионов, которые различаются по уровню пророссийской ориентации. Консервативная оппозиция, оказавшаяся включенной в процесс реформирования, но не имеющая возможности противодействовать ему открыто, часто выражает свою точку зрения через символические действия. Так, в Одессе «низовым» символическим высказыванием является подчеркнутое следование традиционным и «пророссийским» формам ритуальности, связанным с Днем Победы: игнорирование новой даты проведения праздника (на мероприятия, организованные центральной властью 8 мая, приходят значительно меньше одесситов, чем на традиционные мероприятия 9 мая); внимание к запрещенной символике (красным знаменам, советским воинским символам, советским военным песням, георгиевским лентам); демонстрация портретов ветеранов войны, что является следованием формату «Бессмертного полка» (формат возник как деидеологизированный, но в современной Украине воспринимающийся как «пророссийский»); использование в различных формах «нежелательной» лексики, например, выражения «Великая Отечественная война» вместо «Вторая мировая война» и др. The formation of identity in modern Ukraine is connected, in particular, with attitudes towards many aspects of its history, primarily the history of the Soviet period. The most important of these is the attitude towards the Great Patriotic War, the term used in former republics of the Soviet Union to refer to WWII. In 2014-2015, after the sharp deterioration in Russian-Ukrainian relations, a new official conception of Victory Day was developed as part of the process of de-communization. One’s attitude towards the reform of the holiday became a test of loyalty not only for politicians and ordinary citizens, but also for entire regions of the country, which, as is known, differ in their level of pro-Russian sentiment. The conservative, pro-Russian opposition to the reform process, which was drawn into it but was unable to oppose it openly, often expresses its point of view through symbolic action. In Odessa, for instance, the grassroots symbolic expression of this attitude is an emphatic adherence to the traditional and “pro-Russian” forms of the ritual associated with Victory Day. This includes ignoring the new date of the holiday, May 8 (many fewer Odessa residents turn out for the events organized by the central government on that date as compared to their participation in old-style events on May 9); the use of forbidden symbols such as red flags, Soviet military images and songs, and St. George ribbons (a traditional mark of remembrance of those who died in WWII); parading with portraits of war veterans, following the model of the “Immortal Regiment” (a patriotic society with its own special practice of street marching; while this practice began in Russia as ideologically neutral, in modern Ukraine it is perceived as “pro-Russian”); and the use of “undesirable” vocabulary, for example, use of the expression “Great Patriotic War” instead of “World War II.”

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