Violating the Canon: Reading Der Nister with Vasilii Grossman

Slavic Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Murav
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
War Literature ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Political Constraints ◽  
Literary Space ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era

'Violating the Canon” makes the case for an alternative Jewish and literary space in the context of Soviet war literature by comparing works by Vasilii Grossman, Il'ia Erenburg, and the Yiddish author Der Nister. In this article, Harriet Murav distinguishes the question of literary value from the question of identity and separates out the problem of determining the typicality or representativeness of a work from the problem of engaging the complexity of its meanings. Jewish literature from the Soviet Union ought to be recovered from the constraints that subordinate it to Cold War-era sociological and political constraints. Mikhail Bakhtin, Werner Sollors, and Michael Warner provide approaches that allow access to more fluid and open-ended readings.

The Future

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom ◽  
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
China Threat

Is China bent on world domination? Although Americans perceived the Soviet Union as posing the greatest Cold War-era military challenge, they also periodically feared a “China threat” during those decades. Since the days of Mao, the PRC’s penchant for staging parades showing off its...

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 25 The Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan—1979–80

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nolte Georg ◽  
Barkholdt Janina
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Final Section ◽  
International Community ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
Negative Reaction ◽  
Applicable Law ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

This contribution discusses the intervention by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (1979-1980). After recalling the facts and the context of this intervention, it sets out the legal positions of the main protagonists (the Soviet Union and Afghanistan) and examines the reaction of the international community of States. It then analyses the different grounds invoked by the Soviet Union as justification for the lawfulness of its intervention focusing on the claim of an intervention by invitation. In the final section it is argued that the negative reaction of a large majority of states to the justifications offered by the Soviet Union have led to a confirmation and clarification of the applicable law.

Imagining a Global Sovereignty: U.S. Counternarcotic Operations in Istanbul during the Early Cold War and the Origins of the Foreign “War on Drugs”

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Pembleton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Federal Bureau ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Deep State ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

Drawing on declassified records of the little-known Federal Bureau of Narcotics, this article examines counternarcotics operations in postwar Istanbul in the context of the Cold War and its impact on U.S. officials’ conceptions of national security. Ever-expanding drug control operations demonstrated the emergence of U.S. hegemonic impulses independent of the deepening conflict with the Soviet Union. The article challenges the view that U.S. policy on drug control during the early Cold War era existed primarily as an adjunct of the “deep state.” Actual U.S. policies were shaped by a much more complex set of factors.

scholarly journals Le réexamen des affaires du vol 007 de la Korean Airlines et du RB-50 (Note)

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-65
Author(s):  
Anatoli Ilyashov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

As revealed by documents in the National Archives in Washington, u.c., the United States routinely and knowingly sent reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union during the fifties and sixties. The u-2 shootdown of the pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1960 was a manifestation of this dangerous pattern during the Cold War era. The author, the first Fulbright Lecturer to the formerly « closed-to-foreigners » military-industrial city of Nizhny Novgorod, or Gorki, suggests a direct correlation between this pattern of earlier reconnaissance flights and the shoot down of the KAL 007 airliner in 1983. It thus contains implications for current foreign policy in the bold new post-Cold War era, in which the means for surveillance have become more militarily sophisticated and technologically advanced.

American travelers to the soviet union in the cold war era

Society ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Paul Hollander
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

Foreign Intelligence and the Historiography of the Cold War

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond L. Garthoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Foreign Intelligence ◽  
The Cold War

Foreign intelligence played a number of important roles in the Cold War, but this topic has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. This survey article provides a broad overview of some of the new literature and documentation pertaining to Cold War era intelligence, as well as the key dimensions of the topic. Despite the continued obstacles posed by secrecy and the mixed reliability of sources, the publication of numerous memoirs and the release of a huge volume of fresh archival material in the post— Cold War era have opened new opportunities to study the role of intelligence in Cold War history. Scholars should explore not only the “micro level” of the problem (the impact of intelligence on specific events) but also the “macro level,” looking at the many ways that the Cold War as a whole (its origins, its course, and its outcome) was influenced, perhaps even shaped, by the intelligence agencies of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other key countries. It is also crucial to examine the unintended consequences of intelligence activities. Some interesting examples of “blowback” (effects that boomerang against the country that initiated them) have recently come to light from intelligence operations that the United States undertook against the Soviet Union. Only by understanding the complex nature of the role of intelligence during the Cold War will we be able to come to grips with the historiographic challenge that the topic poses.

US Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Success Story?

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-79
Author(s):  
John Robert Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Radio Free Europe

AbstractThe post-'9/11' revival of interest in US public diplomacy encompasses a wide variety of opinions, all overwhelmingly critical. In view of falling global favourability towards and the foreign policy challenges of the United States during this period, the purveyors of these opinions ultimately agree that US public diplomacy efforts are flawed and ineffective. Of these critical observations, it is interesting to track a thread of logic that yearns for the restoration of public diplomacy's Cold War-era standing, which holds that the spread of liberal democracy behind the Berlin Wall owes a debt to the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, that cultural exchanges with influential members of Soviet society helped to create the groundswell that undermined the communist regime, and that public diplomats made these outcomes possible by being equipped with the necessary tools of statecraft, as well as by wielding an important measure of influence over policy-makers. The fall of the Soviet Union merely underscores their notion that public diplomacy during the Cold War was a success. It would thus seem that the problems of today could be remedied by adopting lessons from the past. This article explores the viability of this claim by reviewing the ongoing debate on how the historical memory and lessons of Cold War-era public diplomacy may be applied to the challenges of the post-'9/11' era. Of particular importance is ascertaining the degree to which the Cold War's campaigns of information, influence and engagement could be viewed as a success. By subdividing public diplomacy's activities in these ways, greater potential exists to attribute these activities to more compelling determinations of success or failure.

scholarly journals Faith, Fallout, and the Future: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction in the Early Postwar Era

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 520
Author(s):  
Michael Scheibach
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Atomic Age ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Role Of Religion

In the early postwar era, from 1945 to 1960, Americans confronted a dilemma that had never been faced before. In the new atomic age, which opened with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, they now had to grapple with maintaining their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future while also controlling their fear of an apocalyptic future resulting from an atomic war. Americans’ subsequent search for reassurance translated into a dramatic increase in church membership and the rise of the evangelical movement. Yet, their fear of an atomic war with the Soviet Union and possible nuclear apocalypse did not abate. This article discusses how six post-apocalyptic science fiction novels dealt with this dilemma and presented their visions of the future; more important, it argues that these novels not only reflect the views of many Americans in the early Cold War era, but also provide relevant insights into the role of religion during these complex and controversial years to reframe the belief that an apocalypse was inevitable.

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