scholarly journals Beethoven und Mozart als Helden der Jugend?

Author(s):  
Amrei Flechsig

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Детская литература как одно из средств пропаганды сталинизма способствовала господству номенклатуры, относительно длительному сохранению тех форм общества и государства, которые сложились после »термидора« 1929 года. [Die Kinderliteratur als eines der Propagandamittel des Stalinismus trug zur Herrschaft der Nomenklatura und zur relativ langen Erhaltung derjenigen Gesellschafts und Staatsformen bei, die nach dem »Thermidor« von 1929 entstanden waren.](Fateev 2007, S. 300) Wie Andrej Fateev in dieser Aussage als eines der Ergebnisse seiner Studie zu Kinderliteratur und Stalinismus konstatiert, hatte die Literatur für Kinder und Jugendliche in der Sowjetunion ein besonderes Gewicht als Propagandainstrument. Nachvollziehbar wird dies nicht nur an dem Aufkommen neuer Themen und Inhalte in der Jugendliteratur, sondern vor allem auch an der breiten Diskussion und der Gründung neuer Institutionen. Beethoven and Mozart as Heroes for the Young?Composer Biographies in Soviet Youth Literature Starting with a discussion of the development of children’s and youth literature in the Soviet Union and its integration into ideological educational systems, this article then looks at a specific field of interest: composer biographies for a young readership published between the 1930s and the late 1960s. In general, in the Soviet Union, the medium of biography was seen as having potential for heroic historiography in the socialist sense, and one which could provide role models and concrete images of thought formulated in Marxist-Leninist terms. The widespread distribution of biographies for young readers in the course of intensified ideological educational work in the Soviet Union contrasts greatly to the situation in the Federal Republic of Germany where after 1945, as a reaction to the ideologisation and portrayal of heroes under National Socialism, biographies were quasi taboo. But how do composers become heroes of books for children and young adults? Mozart and Beethoven are particularly suitable examples, since their biographies have been subject to a long tradition of heroisation and reinterpretation. These composers were also assigned new attributes in the Soviet Union: Beethoven was elevated to the status of an exemplary revolutionary and Mozart likewise to that of a fighter for freedom and against feudalistic oppression.

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.


1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (02) ◽  
pp. 156-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrejs Penikis

On October 20, 1989 the Harriman Institute's Nationalities and Siberian Studies Program of Columbia University sponsored a panel discussion entitled, “The Baltic Republics Fifty Years After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.” The panel, consisting of Dr. Allen Lynch, Dr. Stephan Kux, Mr. Jenik Radon and Mr. William Hough, analyzed the current situation in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as in the other republics from a variety of perspectives, and debated the motivations and appropriateness of the response of the Western powers to the growing strength of the various independence movements in the Baltic republics. The following edited transcript of those proceedings points up the complex and contentious nature of the status of the Baltic republics in the era of Gorbachev, in both the domestic (Soviet) and international contexts. Nationalist leaders within the Soviet Union debate the appropriate tactics and pace to pursue their goals. The Soviet leadership dabates the extent to which autonomy may be granted to the nationalities. Western leaders consider their options in responding to the changes in the Soviet Union, changes which necessitate an overhaul of policies nearly a half-century old as well as some “new thinking” on their parts. The discussion centered on two issues: (1) What in general has been the response of the West to nationalist movements in the USSR and how appropriate has that response been? (2) Is there any validity to claims of Baltic “exceptionalism”? The following introduction comments briefly on these issues and places them into perspective by drawing on the discussion and exploring several key points.


Author(s):  
Paul Robinson ◽  
Mikhail Antonov

This chapter shows that the Russian philosophical and legal traditions regarding war have advanced along a number of different tracks. In Imperial Russia, some thinkers adopted pacifist positions; others regarded war as a necessary evil. A similar bifurcation of thought can be seen in the Soviet era. The Soviets expounded a belief in the principles of non-interference and peaceful coexistence. At the same time, they also sometimes portrayed war in a positive light. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian scholars and political leaders have generally supported state sovereignty and rejected attempts to justify humanitarian interventions, regime change, and preventive war (on these Western strategies, see Geis/Wagner, Stohl, and Jahn in this volume). Nevertheless, they have on occasion resorted to very similar language themselves. Russian narratives thus oscillate between favouring pacifism and sovereignty as means of preserving the status quo and, as an exception, supporting military interventions when these are required by the transient goals of Russian foreign policy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 398-408
Author(s):  
Olga Krasnyak

Summary The 1958 Lacy-Zarubin agreement on cultural, educational and scientific exchanges marked decades of people-to-people exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union. Despite the Cold War tensions and mutually propagated adversarial images, the exchanges had never been interrupted and remained unbroken until the Soviet Union dissolved. This essay argues that due to the 1958 general agreement and a number of co-operative agreements that had the status of treaties and international acts issued under the authority of the US State Department and the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the exchanges could not proceed without diplomatic supervision. This peculiarity puts academic and technical exchanges specifically into the framework of science diplomacy, which is considered a diplomatic tool for implementing a nation state’s foreign policy goals determined by political power.


1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 115-117
Author(s):  
Herbert Scoville

In speaking about arms control negotiations in a multipolar world, it is necessary to bear in mind that we are not really in a multipolar world right now. But perhaps we are starting toward one, at least as far as nuclear power is concerned. Britain, France, and China possess only relatively small nuclear forces at present but they will grow in time and eventually will have to be taken into consideration at least in arms control negotiations involving nuclear weapons. France and Britain at the present do have a nuclear deterrent force which would deter an attack as far as the Soviets are concerned. The status of the Chinese nuclear force is very much more uncertain. It is possible that they now possess a very limited deterrent to an attack by the Soviet Union. Certainly there is no question that at the present time they do not have any means by which they can threaten, even in retaliation, a nuclear attack against the United States. As a consequence, the Chinese do not provide any direct threat to us and we can go ahead and negotiate agreements with the Soviet Union without any real consideration of Chinese participation. One need not conclude from the growing Chinese nuclear power that they must necessarily be brought into the SALT negotiations in the near future.


1994 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-137
Author(s):  
Bart Driessen

AbstractThis study argues that customary international law obliges the Baltic states to accept the Slav populations as an integral part of the Baltic peoples. The history and collapse of the Soviet Union has produced large groups of Slav immigrants to remain in the Baltic states. They are not automatically granted citizenship rights in Estonia and Latvia, as they have to prove to qualify for naturalisation. People descending from the inter-War citizenry do ipso facto qualify for citizenship. First the nature of the coming-to-independence of the Baltic states is analysed, after which the law on self-determination is investigated. The de facto recognition of the Soviet annexation by most of the international community is seen as the watershed as far as the status of the Baltic states is concerned; from then on they were for all practical purposes part of the Soviet Union. Following an analysis of the applicable norms of customary international law, a scrutiny of relevant Baltic legislation is presented.


1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-150
Author(s):  
Mordechai Altschuler

Professor Altschuler launched his discussion of the volatile status of Jews living in the USSR by challenging the popular understanding of ‘Soviet Jewry.’ Fundamental questions arise: how many Soviet Jews are there? What are the various types of Jewish communities within the Soviet Union, and how do they differ one from another? What are the distinguishing cultural activities of Soviet Jews? and what is the status of their emigration from the USSR?


2011 ◽  
Vol 161 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-274
Author(s):  
Wiesław ŁACH

This article focuses predominantly on analysing the role of the northern area of Poland in the security system of Poland following World War II. The separation of the area from the national defence system of the country resulted from the specific nature of incorporating a part of the former Eastern Prussia into Poland and its neighbourhood with the Soviet Union.In view of the Polish national administration, the area included the Olsztyn Voivodeship and part of the Gdansk Voivodeship east of the Vistula and the Bialystok Voivodeship bordering the Kaliningrad District. According to the military division of the country, the area was part of the Warsaw Military District and the Pomeranian Military District.The time frame was determined by the establishment and ultimate designation of the northern border in 1957, when Poland and the Soviet Union signed a treaty regarding the marking of the existing national border between Poland and the Soviet Union adhering to the Baltic Sea (5 March 1957).The article examines the political and military circumstances in which Poland’s northern border was determined, it assesses it operationally and determines the status of the northern area of Poland in the country’s security system.The subject has not been widely examined and literary sources are scarce. Most of the materials can be found in the Central Military Archives and the Border Guard Archives in Kętrzyn.Northern Poland has always been a key operational area, yet its defensive weakness, in the former political arrangement, was greatly affected by the proximity of the Soviet Union. The problem of defending Poland’s northern border was a dilemma that was increasingly growing in difficulty over the years. There were a large number of factors causing it, and it was in the sphere of defence that they manifested themselves most visibly.


Author(s):  
MARCIN SAR

The author comments on the dynamics of Moscow's effort to reconcile its pursuit of control over Eastern Europe with its interest in a viable Eastern Europe, one that is stable and capable of self-sustaining development. Although Moscow has always exercised control in military matters, it allowed some Eastern Europeans economic independence in the 1970s. Changing circumstances in the 1980s, however, have caused the Kremlin to rethink its relationships with its Eastern European “satallies”— half satellites, half allies. Moscow faces dilemmas in areas such as energy, agriculture, the Eastern European states' relations with the West, economic reforms occurring in Eastern Europe, and integration within COMECON. How Moscow resolves these dilemmas lies at the core of its future relationships with Eastern Europe. Other important factors include the lessons learned from Poland, East Germany's evolving relationship with the Federal Republic of Germany, and China's growing economic and political initiatives vis-à-vis Eastern Europe.


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