scholarly journals Revisionism and Neo-Revisionism in Russian Foreign Policy: Reflecting on the Book by Sakwa R. Russia’s Futures. Polity Press, 2019

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-193
Author(s):  
Daria B. Kazarinova
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Russian Politics ◽  
Second World

This article analyzes the latest book by the British expert on Russian politics R. Sakwa, his key conceptual ideas, key characteristics, contradictions and challenges (between the “stabilocracy” and “securocracy”, incompleteness of modernization and neo-modernization, the letter and spirit of Russian constitutionalism) of modern Russia. We analyze his arguments about the variety of interpretations of the concept of “normality” in relation to Russia as opposed to Western approaches. The contradictions of the New cold war grow into a clash of epistemologies / narratives / discourses / values, in which framing and the accusation of revisionism becomes a tool. We emphasize the fundamental difference in approaches to defining concepts of revisionism and neo-revisionism, trace the dialectic of these concepts from a neo-Marxist understanding to a geopolitical one, generalize the existing definitions, including the understanding of neo-revisionism as an integral attribute of emerging power, which R. Sakwa also adheres to. The revision of history, especially the memory of war, is a powerful propaganda tool for the clash of narratives. In context of development of the “mnemonic security dilemma” (D. Efremenko), the change of the Holocaust narrative to the narrative of the “war of two totalitarianisms” in Europe, Russia should adopt a number of principles for working in the field of historical memory of the Second World War, including new interpretations for the role of China in the victory over fascism.

On the group matrix and the morality of the nuclear deterrent: The worldview of Gregory van der Kleij

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-376
Author(s):  
Harold Behr
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Group Matrix ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article presents the writings of Gregory van der Kleij, group analyst and Catholic priest, whose experiences of the holocaust during the Second World War shaped his thinking, not only as a therapist but also as a campaigner against the nuclear arms race. The author re-visits two significant articles on the group matrix published in this journal in the 1980s and introduces the reader to a little-known monograph addressed to the Catholic community which examines the moral dilemma faced by Christians during the Cold War. The monograph contains an exhortation to rise up in protest against what Gregory considers to be ‘the madness’ of high-level thinking on the morality of the nuclear deterrent.

Shylock in Buchenwald

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-174
Author(s):  
Gad Kaynar-Kissinger
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
World War ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Second World

Can The Merchant of Venice be performed in Germany after the Holocaust, and if so, how? Is the claim that the play is a touchstone for German-Jewish relations, with a philosemitic tradition – and therefore eligible to be performed today – verifiable? The article begins by briefly surveying this tradition from the Jewish emancipation in the mid-eighteenth century, which, with a few relapses, continued – especially in productions directed by Jews and/or with Jewish actors in the role of Shylock – until the rise of the Nazi regime, to be resumed after the Second World War. The main part analyses a test case, staged by the Israeli director Hanan Snir at the Weimar National Theatre (1995), and intended rhetorically to avenge the Holocaust on the German audience: Merchant as a viciously antisemitic play-within-a-play, directed by SS personnel in the nearby Buchenwald concentration camp with eventually murdered Jewish inmates compelled to play the Jewish parts.

scholarly journals Historical Memory of the Great Patriotic War as a Soft Power Resource of Modern Russia

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-45
Author(s):  
A.O. Naumov
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Brics Countries ◽  
Eurasian Economic Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The article is devoted to the study of the role of historical memory of the Great Patriotic War as a resource of soft power of the Russian Federation. The research methods used are the method of historicism, institutional approach and comparative analysis. In this context, the countries that are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) and the BRICS (Russia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa) are considered as objects of implementation of the domestic soft power policy. The author reveals the awareness of the peoples of these states about the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, the attitude of political elites to the events of 1939-1945, peculiarity of state politics of historical memory in relation to this global conflict. Based on this analysis, proposals are formulated to optimize the Russian strategy of soft power in the EEU and BRICS countries. The author concludes that the narrative of the Great Victory is potentially a very effective resource of modern Russia’s soft power.

scholarly journals The Role of Sources in Historical Memory: Evacuee Children of Second World War Britain

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Oeste
Keyword(s):  
Public Memory ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
British Children

<p>Was the evacuation program for British children during the Second World War a success or a failure? This paper analyses how various types of sources, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, provide different answers to this question, and ultimately impact how the evacuations take shape in public memory.</p>

II. The Role of a Theologian in Genocide Prevention: Theology in Postgenocide Rwanda

Horizons ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-89
Author(s):  
Elisee Rutagambwa
Keyword(s):  
International Community ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
World Community ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face ◽  
Second World

When the world came to its senses after the Second World War and reports of the horrors of the Holocaust began to spread, the international community reacted with disbelief. And when reality proved much worse than even the worst nightmare, the world community reacted unanimously with a general outcry: crimes of this magnitude must never happen again. It appeared quite clear that, in the future, the international community would never again remain inactive in the face of such appalling tragedy. Yet, the firm imperative “never again” has become “again and again,” and the same dreadful crimes have been repeated in many parts of the world.

scholarly journals The Third International Scientific and Educational Conference – “USSR in the Second World War (1939–1945): Historical Memory Issues” (St. Petersburg, October 15–16, 2020)

2021 ◽  
pp. 129-134
Author(s):  
Elena Krasnozhenova
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Formal Concept ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
War Memories ◽  
Approaches To Study ◽  
Second World

The Third International Scientific and Educational Conference – “USSR in the Second World War (1939–1945): Historical Memory Issues” was devoted to the 75th Anniversary of the Victory over Nazi Germany and its Allies. The conference became a platform to address topical issues regarding preserving and popularizing the war memories and discussing the role of the USSR in the victory over fascism. The historical events of the Great Patriotic War and Second World War, being both part of historical memory and objects of historical studies, were given consi­deration. The review of the reports, presented at the conference, demonstrates that the authors extensively expand their source base, reconsider the formal concept of war, raise new problems and questions, and apply new approaches to study war memories in general.

scholarly journals Discourse of the postgeneration: Remembrance and identity of the descendants of the perpetrators and the victims of the holocaust

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 78-90
Author(s):  
Julija Matejic
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Temporal Distance ◽  
World War ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Family ◽  
Perpetrators And Victims ◽  
Second World

By analyzing the role of the family in the process of inter/transgenerational inheritance of trauma and memory (remembrance), the paper is an attempt at providing an answer to how the un-experienced past affects the lives of the descendants of the direct perpetrators and victims of the Holocaust, or rather, how it affects the identity forming of the so-called postgeneration. As the temporal distance from the Second World War increases, and as the number of those with immediate experiences and memories decreases, the expressions like memory and remembrance begin to lose their conventional meaning. As the research shows, even with the lack of first-hand experience, the descendents of those who survived mass traumatic events are subjectively deeply attached to the memory of the previous generation (so much so that they label that attachment as remembrance, and they feel their parents? traumas as their own). Given the fact that it is not possible to physically transfer the trauma and memory to descendants, the paper analyzes and compares the terminology that the professional literature has adopted so far, i.e. secondary traumatization (in case of a child), tertian traumatization (in case of a grandchild), as well as echoes of the trauma and postmemory. The main thesis of this paper is that echoes of the memory and echoes of the trauma cause the so-called identity crisis of the Holocaust postgeneration, that is, only facing the past leads to postgeneration?s coming to terms with it.

scholarly journals The wall of silence surrounding literature and remembrance: Varlam Shalamov’s “Artificial Limbs”, Etc. as a metaphor of the soviet empire

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
Marcin Kępiński
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Artificial Limbs ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Second World

Literature of an autobiographical character acquires a special significance in the world of the bloody tragic events of the 20th century, i.e. the Holocaust, the Second World War, the realities of the Nazi and Soviet totalitarianisms, death camps, and forced labour. Those are the recollections of experienced trauma which shatters identity, and of existential experiences of a borderline nature, of which Shalamov, a witness to the epoch, felt an obligation to talk. An anthropological analysis of Varlam Shalamov’s short story titled Artificial Limbs, Etc. enables one to grasp the role of memory and autobiographical testimony as a kind of cultural and literary antidote to silence and memory distorted by the Soviet totalitarianism. The author of Kolyma Tales offered a faithful description of a world outside the‘human’ world, one which was almost impossible to describe due to its inherent moral void, level of violence, and fear of the authorities who made people forget about the crimes, victims, and oppressors.

scholarly journals The Heritage of the Cold War in Contemporary Curricula and Educational Reforms

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Tomislav Topolovčan ◽  
Snježana Dubovicki
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

Using a theoretical-critical and historical approach, this paper analyses the implications of the Cold War in national curricula and educational reforms of the second half of the 20th century with emphasis on the 21st century. The context of the time after the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War is shown, as well as the social and political changes that are significant for education and were prompted by the wars. The emergence of the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (whose focus is not educational but economic) and the role of behavioural psychology were also analysed, which explained their significance in later educational reforms. The role of the Cold War in reducing socio-humanistic teaching contents and the implementation of natural sciences and mathematics has also been explained. The synthesis of the analysed aspects suggests that the Cold War military and technological race resulted in the implementation of the STEM area, thus the measurability of learning outcomes, which influenced the psychologisation, standardisation, economisation, and globalisation of education. Most of the current (un)successful national educational and curricular reforms were initiated in that direction without respect for the social, cultural, and historical features of individual countries. These changes have left a mark in pedagogy, in which the humanistic approach appears to counteract other approaches. Some educational systems demonstrate a shift from such trends, from the technical-scientific curriculum towards the didactic tradition of Bildung and the philosophy of education. The reasons can be found in the above-average results on international standardised evaluations of those countries that have national curricula, in contrast to what is recommended by the globalisation and standardisation of education as some of the elements of the Cold War heritage.

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