scholarly journals Building a Ukrainian Identity in Odessa: Negotiation of Markers and Informal Nationalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Abel Polese

A large and established body of literature on nation building in post-socialist spaces has initially put emphasis on state-centred construction of identity references and markers such as language, education or institutions and governance. In contrast, a recent stream of scholarship has attempted to bring agency into identity debates to propose new tools and approaches that can be used in the study of identity construction. This article is a further exploration of the latter position. It looks at the way identities are constructed, and renegotiated, at the everyday level, by ordinary people, by illustrating the competition between Russian and Ukrainian languages in Odessa, a Ukrainian city on the Black sea, to look at the synergy generated by the competition between local and national narratives.

1985 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 13-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Hinds

Two journeys are implied by the existence of Tristia 1: one, by a poet, a from Rome to the gates of the Black Sea; the other, by a book, from the gates of the Black Sea back to Rome. Each of these journeys is explicitly, and prominently, discussed in Tristia 1; and each makes its presence felt in various ways throughout Tristia 1. Leaving for another day the outward voyage, described especially in the second, fourth, tenth and eleventh poems, I am going to deal in this essay with the return trip of Ovid's book to Rome, as anticipated at some length in the very opening poem of the collection. And (because that is still a somewhat unwieldy topic) I am going to focus on the final destination of Tristia 1 within Rome, as specified in the last twenty lines or so of this first poem: viz: the bookcase in Ovid's Roman home. In these programmatically charged lines, the personified first book of exile poetry finds itself face to face with the poetry books written by Ovid before his exile. I want in the ensuing pages to take a closer look than is usually taken at some details of this and other encounters with Ovid's past writings in the first poems from exile; and my hope is that this analysis will tell us a few things along the way about how the poet is trying here to relate his literary present to his literary past.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1015-1035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abel Polese ◽  
Oleksandra Seliverstova ◽  
Tanel Kerikmae ◽  
Ammon Cheskin

AbstractPolitical debates on the Baltics, and in particular Estonia, have often pointed to “nationalisting” and exclusive narratives constructed at the institutional level. Accordingly, emphasis has been put on the lack of opportunities for Russians to integrate into an Estonian context. While acknowledging the shortfalls of the Estonian political project, this article contrasts these views in two ways. By emphasizing people’s agency and their capacity to question, contrast, or even reject the identity markers proposed by Estonian official narratives, we maintain that the integration of Russians might be more advanced than insofar claimed by other studies. We then look at the way identities are lived in an everyday context by inhabitants of Estonia to counterpose national narratives proposed by the state and its political institutions, with the way people live and whether they accept these narratives. By doing this, we explore the role of the everyday in the reconstruction of national identity narratives, in which citizens actively participate in their individual capacity. We suggest that, from a James Scott “infrapolitics” perspective, these micro-actions have a fundamental role in the reshaping of a national identity and its acceptance among citizens.


Kavkaz-forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
К.Ю. РАХНО

Статья посвящена анализу фольклорно-эпических мотивов иранского происхождения, которые наличествуют в исторической повести «Тарас Бульба» Николая Гоголя. Они обнаруживают параллели как в нартовском эпосе осетин, так и в поэме Фирдоуси «Шахнаме», сказаниях таджиков Систана и татов Дагестана. Делается вывод, что сюжет и многие детали этой знаменитой повести, как и многих других произведений Гоголя, отражают эпическую традицию ираноязычного населения причерноморских степей, которое стало этническим субстратом украинцев. Первым на данную параллель указал Василий Иванович Абаев, сравнивая описания повседневности запорожских казаков, как это имеет место в произведении Н.В. Гоголя «Тарас Бульба», с аналогичным описанием образа жизни нартов в нартовском эпосе. Описываемая повседневность включает в себя не только практику военных походов, но и веселья, включая специфический характер песен, танцев, системы ценностей, языческого мировоззрения. В качестве сравнительного материала автором привлекаются ритуальные пляски массагетов в описании Геродота, а также саков в описании Страбона. Проводится параллель между гоголевским Тарасом Бульбой и иранскими эпическими героями – нартом Батрадзом, Рустамом из поэмы Фирдоуси «Шахнамэ». Схожие черты выявляются в зоонимике, связанной с потусторонними силами, в характере казни убийц, в отношении к данному слову и реакции последствий за его нарушение. Несомненно, в повести отражены древние эпические мотивы степей Причерноморья, восходящие к ираноязычным кочевникам, позже ассимилированных славянами. Они обнаруживают параллели как в нартовском эпосе осетин, имеющем скифские и сармато-аланские корни, так и в персидском литературном эпосе, преданиях систанцев, сказках татов, имеющих отношение к южноиранской эпической традиции, возможно, имеющей скифо-сакские истоки. The article is devoted to the analysis of folklore-epic motifs of Iranian origin, which can be traced in the historical novel “Taras Bulba” by Nikolay Gogol. They find parallels both in the Narts’ epos of the Ossetians, and in Firdousi’s poem “Shahname”, the tales of Tajik Sistans and the Tats of Dagestan. It is concluded that the plot and many details of this famous story, like many other works by Gogol, reflect the epic tradition of the Iranian-speaking population of the Black Sea steppes, which has become the ethnic substrate of the Ukrainians. The first to point to this parallel was Vasily Ivanovich Abaev, comparing the descriptions of the everyday life of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, as is the case in the work of N.V. Gogol's "Taras Bulba", with a similar description of the lifestyle of the Narts in the Nart epic. The described everyday life includes not only the practice of military campaigns, but also fun, including the specific nature of songs, dances, a system of values, a pagan worldview. As a comparative material, the author uses the ritual dances of the Massagets in the description of Herodotus, as well as the Saka in the description of Strabo. A parallel is drawn between Gogol's Taras Bulba and Iranian epic heroes - Nart Batradz, Rustam from Firdousi’s poem “Shahname”. Similar features are revealed in the zoonymy associated with otherworldly forces, in the nature of the execution of murderers, in relation to this word and the reaction of the consequences for its violation. Undoubtedly, the story reflects the ancient epic motifs of the steppes of the Black Sea, dating back to the Iranian-speaking nomads, later assimilated by the Slavs. They find parallels both in the Nartian Ossetian epos, which has Scythian and Sarmatian-Alanian roots, and in the Persian literary epos, the traditions of the Sistans, and tales of the Tats, related to the South Iranian epic tradition, possibly having Scythian-Saka sources.


2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-46
Author(s):  
Abel Polese ◽  
Thomas Ambrosio ◽  
Tanel Kerikmäe

Whilst most accounts of nation branding emphasize the economic and diplomatic relevance of the phenomenon, this article examines the way Estonia has been proposing a nation “branding + building” strategy. Drawing from an empirical study of 1) evolving campaigns of Enterprise Estonia; 2) the leverage of the national e-Residency program in attracting foreign investment; and 3) tourist and marketing strategies based on the revisiting of ‘Estonian’ culinary tradition, we look at the way official narratives have been claiming, with the help of nation branding elements, that the country has quickly de-Sovietized and that there is a new understanding of the Estonian nation and “Estonianness”. This is intended to eventually prompt a reflection on the relationship between nation-building and nation branding, which can, in some circumstances, overlap and influence identity construction at the domestic and international level. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (7b) ◽  
pp. 1415-1420
Author(s):  
Leonid Popov ◽  
Ekaterina Blinova ◽  
Anna Kosheleva ◽  
Ekaterina Valedinskaya ◽  
Andrey Mikhaylets

1947 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 39-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Dawkins

The famous Varangian corps of mercenary soldiers in the service of the emperors of Byzantium is well known in its earlier days to have been recruited from the Scandinavian north. Forging their way from their own inhospitable lands the Northmen, first of all from Sweden, reached the Volga and the lands even to. the south of the Caspian; later by the ‘East Way’, called also the ‘Varangian Way’, they came down through Russia by way of the Dnieper and the Black Sea to Constantinople, first as pirates, then as traders, and finally as the most trusted guards of the imperial person. Later again they ventured on the all-sea route, the ‘West Way’, and also opened a path across Europe, either over the Alps or by way of Provence, and so through Italy: this was the ‘Southern Way’, otherwise called the ‘Way by Rome’ But in the eleventh century, in the first half of which Harald Hardrada, the most famous of all the Varangians, was in the imperial service, there was a certain change; recruits began to come increasingly from England.The first actual mention of the English name seems to be in a bull issued by the Emperor Alexios in 1088 to Christodoulos, the Abbot of the Monastery on Patmos.


2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-70
Author(s):  
Madalina Dana
Keyword(s):  

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine the interactions between the cities of the western and northern shores of the Black Sea (from Apollonia to the Bosporan Kingdom) and the sanctuaries and oracles of the Aegean world. Through the networks between these peripheral cities and the religious centers like Delphi, Delos, Samothrace or Claros, over the centuries, the purpose is to question the way that the gifts, the theoriai and the consultation of oracles involved assuming and asserting a common Greek identity.


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