scholarly journals ‘Living in Sick Europe is Spiritually More Interesting than in Healthy and Well-fed America’: A.V. Kartashev’s Letters to E.I. Novitskii, 1948–1951

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1257-1301
Author(s):  
Aleksandr V. Antoshchenko

This publication includes letters from Anton V. Kartashev, a renowned historian, a professor at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute (Institut de théologie orthodoxe Saint-Serge) in Paris, sent to his friend Evgenii I. Novitskii, who had moved from France to the USA not long before. In the introduction, the publisher describes the context, in which the letters were written, which makes it possible to better understand their meaning and value as a historical source. The letters characterize Anton Kartashev’s attitude of towards the idea of reuniting Russian Orthodox parishes in emigration, which were under the jurisdiction of different church organizations. The historian considered it possible to unite them under the seniority of Metropolitan Anastasii (Gribanovskii) and under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople but doubted the fulfilment of this possibility due to the accumulated canonical contradictions. Particular attention is paid to the relations between the Russian Exarchate in Western Europe and the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in the United States, as well as the possibility of educating graduates of St. Tikhon’s Theological Seminary (Pennsylvania) at the institute. In addition to the information about the persons and events mentioned in the correspondence, the commentary includes fragments from letters of the historian’s wife, Pavla P. Kartasheva, which reveal the nuances of what was sometimes only briefly reported by her husband. Among the latter there are the demarcation between the generations of “fathers” and “sons” at the institute, which led to the departure of young professors to America, and the trip of the Kartashevs to Italy.

Author(s):  
N.N. Ravochkin ◽  
◽  

The author examines the ideological foundations of political and legal institutional architectonics in Western Europe and the United States and presents its structure. Close attention is paid to the role of social ideas and the development of these issues in modern scientific directions. The author clarifies the principles of synthesis of ideal and institutional and shows three ways of ideological determination of political and legal institutional settings. The mutually conditioned nature of functioning of the system of ideological frameworks and management institutions is substantiated.


Author(s):  
Peter Baldwin

To Return To The Bulk of our material in this book, what absolute differences separate the United States from Europe? The United States is a nation where proportionately more people are murdered each year, more are jailed, and more own guns than anywhere in Europe. The death penalty is still law. Religious belief is more fervent and widespread. A smaller percentage of citizens vote. Collective bargaining covers relatively fewer workers, and the state’s tax take is lower. Inequality is somewhat more pronounced. That is about it. In almost every other respect, differences are ones of degree, rather than kind. Oft en, they do not exist, or if they do, no more so than the same disparities hold true within Western Europe itself. At the very least, this suggests that farreaching claims to radical differences across the Atlantic have been overstated. Even on violence—a salient difference that leaps unprompted from the evidence, both statistical and anecdotal—the contrast depends on how it is framed. Without question, murder rates are dramatically different across the Atlantic. And, of course, murder is the most shocking form of sudden, unexpected death, unsettling communities, leaving survivors bereaved and mourning. But consider a wider definition of unanticipated, immediate, and profoundly disrupting death. Suicide is oft en thought of as the exit option for old, sick men anticipating the inevitable, and therefore not something that changes the world around them. But, in fact, the distribution of suicide over the lifespan is broadly uniform. In Iceland, Ireland, the UK, and the United States, more young men (below forty-five) than old do themselves in. In Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway, the figures are almost equal. Elsewhere, the older have a slight edge. But overall, the ratio between young and old suicides approximates 1:1. Broadly speaking, and sticking with the sex that most oft en kills itself, men do away with themselves as oft en when they are younger and possibly still husbands, fathers, and sons as they do when they are older and when their actions are perhaps fraught with less consequence for others. Suicide is as unsettling, and oft en even more so, for survivors as murder.


2020 ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Dmytro Lakishyk

The article examines US policy towards West Germany after World War II, covering a historical span from the second half of the 1940s to the 1980s. It was US policy in Europe, and in West Germany in particular, that determined the dynamics and nature of US-German relations that arose on a long-term basis after the formation of Germany in September 1949. One of the peculiarities of US-German relations was the fact that both partners found themselves embroiled in a rapidly escalating international situation after 1945. The Cold War, which broke out after the seemingly inviolable Potsdam Accords, forced the United States and Germany to be on one side of the conflict. Despite the fact that both states were yesterday’s opponents and came out of the war with completely different, at that time, incomparable, statuses. A characteristic feature of US policy on the German question in the postwar years was its controversial evolution. The American leadership had neither a conceptual plan for development, nor a clear idea of Germany’s place in the world, nor an idea of how to plan the country’s future. However, the deterioration of relations between the USA and the USSR and the birth of the two blocs forced the US government to resort to economic revival (the Marshall Plan) and military-political consolidation of Western Europe and Germany (NATO creation). US policy toward Germany has been at the heart of its wider European policy. The United States favored a strong and united Western Europe over American hegemony, trying to prevent the spread of Soviet influence. Joint participation in the suppression of communism, however, could not prevent the periodic exacerbation of relations between the United States and Germany, and at the same time did not lead to an unconditional follow-up of the West Germans in the fairway of American foreign policy.


Author(s):  
Zinaida Svyaschenko

The article аnalyses the US’ position on the idea of creating the united Europe within the context of the events of the “cold war”. For many years after the Second World War promoting the European integration was one of the important areas of the American foreign policy. An important role in this process belonged to the “Marshall Plan”, which showed support for the ideas of the European unification and forced the leaders of the Western countries to consider the practical steps for their implementation, supported by Washington. Particular attention is paid to NATO, the formation of which was a joint project of the United States and Europe. This organization had globalized and deepened the economic liasions of the countries, and so they became sustainable partners in the most important areas of their cooperation. It was a pledge of stable contacts and coordination on the major 63 issues, which provided guarantees to the both sides. To reinsure its interests, The US started addressing to Europe, appealing to the equal partnership, knowingly claiming to gaining the unquestionable leadership. It is concluded that the renaissance of some European structures by means of the United States’ aid would put the countries of the region in the distinct dependence. Later, economically strong and integrated Western Europe would act as a partner for a global political leader – the United States, without claiming to be an equal partner that develops within the limits set by the USA. That is why the Western Europe faced a difficult choice of integration during this period. All the further actions taken by the European leaders were focused on the possibility of independent planning and subsequent conduct of their internal policies.


Author(s):  
Olga Novikova ◽  

Beginning with an overview of the threats of terrorism in Europe and the USA, the author offers a survey of factors that have been identified as influencing the practices of counterterrorism or law enforcement agencies. Massive counterterrorism operations in Syria and Iraq as well as effectiveness of the counterterrorism authorities curbed large-scale attacks of jihadists in both Western Europe and the United States. But with one of the Islamic State’s key goals being the formation of a new society, rather than simply military victories, the dissemination of its brand and ideology via mainstream social media becomes critical to achieving ISIS’ strategic goals. A surge in the Muslim population with subsequent high Muslim unemployment has been shown to be a predisposing factor for radicalization of the part of Muslim diasporas and its recruitment into the global jihad. The EU-members and the United States need to work more closely on disrupting jihadists’ social media, travel, recruitment and logistics, countering terrorist finance, protecting potential targets. The importance of sharing information is specifically underlined. But the polarisation of society, discrimination and other psychological and sociological factors can reinforce people’s vulnerability to radical discourse. Thus, counter-terrorism should not be purely repressive: integration and iclusion would contribute to prevention efforts, assuming that a more cohesive and inclusive society can help prevent the spread of extremist ideologies leading to terrorism.


Author(s):  
Ferdinand Gjana

The United States and its European allies share a common commitment to global order, moderated by the quest of global justice. So long as the Soviet Union stationed its armies across central Europe, the overriding common interest of maintaining the security and freedom of Western Europe held the Atlantic Alliance together. Underneath this, however, interests (and perceptions of interests) had diverged from the 1960s onwards, as American security concerns focused more on Southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf, while European governments explored the possibilities of détente within their own region. Since 1990, different geopolitical positions have driven US and European interests apart. Different trends in energy dependence - and different understandings of climate change - have also shaped distinctive interests. Different levels of military capability in the projection of force have interacted with divergent understandings of the process of political, social and economic development, of the roots of terrorist movements and the pathology of aggressive state regimes. Widespread resistance within the USA to accepting the legitimacy of international law and of global institutions, rooted in the belief in the exceptional character of the U.S. Constitution and the self-evident morality of American policy, as well as in the self-evident supremacy of U.S. military power, has also widened the gap in interests and understandings across the Atlantic. In recent years, the most fundamental challenge to management of the EU-NATO relationship has been the combination of a United States drifting toward unilat¬eralism and European concentration on creating an "autonomous" defence policy. Such natural but ominous tendencies could feed on one another, creating cir¬cumstances that could lead the transatlantic bargain from one crisis to another. This article deals with the EU-NATO relations and their views regarding the security and the partnership in general.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 131-148
Author(s):  
Marcin Graban

The stance of the Catholic Church in the United States of America on the problems related to workers’ wages is an interesting issue from the point of view of the ethics of economic life and the development of Catholic social thought. The interpretation of the main Catholic social ideas contained in Leo XIII’s encyclical letter Rerum novarum was made by Father John Augustine Ryan (1896–1945), who soon became a major proponent of the idea that a good economic policy can only result from good ethics. In the history of the United States of America, the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was a time of the development of labor unions, associations and workers’ organizations as well as the consolidation of efforts to achieve equitable remuneration (a living wage) and regulate working conditions. It was also a time of struggling with the ideas of socialism and nationalism. The Catholic Church played a significant role in the discourse on these issues, including the influence of John A. Ryan. His efforts led to one of the most important interpretations of economic life: The Program of Social Reconstruction (1919), and some of its postulates can be found in the New Deal legislation.


2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Goggin

Interest in the fate of the German psychoanalysts who had to flee Hitler's Germany and find refuge in a new nation, such as the United States, has increased. The ‘émigré research’ shows that several themes recur: (1) the theme of ‘loss’ of one's culture, homeland, language, and family; and (2) the ambiva-lent welcome these émigrés received in their new country. We describe the political-social-cultural context that existed in the United States during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Documentary evidence found in the FBI files of three émigré psychoanalysts, Clara Happel, Martin Grotjahn, and Otto Fenichel, are then presented in combination with other source material. This provides a provisional impression of how each of these three individuals experienced their emigration. As such, it gives us elements of a history. The FBI documents suggest that the American atmosphere of political insecurity and fear-based ethnocentric nationalism may have reinforced their old fears of National Socialism, and contributed to their inclination to inhibit or seal off parts of them-selves and their personal histories in order to adapt to their new home and become Americanized. They abandoned the rich social, cultural, political tradition that was part of European psychoanalysis. Finally, we look at these elements of a history in order to ask a larger question about the appropriate balance between a liberal democratic government's right to protect itself from internal and external threats on the one hand, or crossover into the blatant invasion of civil rights and due process on the other.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
Silvia Spitta

Sandra Ramos (b. 1969) is one of the few artists to reflect critically on both sides of the Cuban di-lemma, fully embodying the etymological origins of the word in ancient Greek: di-, meaning twice, and lemma, denoting a form of argument involving a choice between equally unfavorable alternatives. Throughout her works she shines a light on the dilemmas faced by Cubans whether in Cuba or the United States, underlining the bad personal and political choices people face in both countries. During the hard 1990s, while still in Havana, the artist focused on the traumatic one-way journey into exile by thousands, as well as the experience of profound abandonment experienced by those who were left behind on the island. Today she lives in Miami and operates a studio there as well as one in Havana. Her initial disorientation in the USA has morphed into an acerbic representation and critique of the current administration and a deep concern with the environmental collapse we face. A buffoonlike Trumpito has joined el Bobo de Abela and Liborio in her gallery of comic characters derived from the rich Cuban graphic arts tradition where she was formed. While Cuba is now represented as a rotten cake with menacing flies hovering over it ready to pounce, a bombastic Trumpito marches across the world stage, trampling everything underfoot, a dollar sign for a face.


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