scholarly journals Reborn Poland or Reconstructed Empire? Questions on the Course and Results of Polish Eastern Policy (1918–1921)

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-150
Author(s):  
Andrzej Nowak

The article presents the main geopolitical concepts of Polish foreign politics and military strategy between 1918 and 1921. The author discusses two general programmes of policy towards Poland’s neighbours to the East: the ‘federalist’ option associated with Józef Piłsudski, and the ‘incorporationist’ option of Roman Dmowski. The analysis is concentrated around the efforts to realize the former programme. Starting from a detailed analysis of Piłsudski’s instructions to the Polish delegation to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of 1918, through a special mission of Michał Römer sent to Lithuania in April 1919, and reasons of its failure, the author turns to a history of the ‘Ukrainian card’, played by Piłsudski in 1919 and 1920 in order to achieve a geopolitical counter-balance to any Russian/Soviet imperialism. Finally, the article deals with the meaning of the Piłsudski’s eastern policy as one of the main factors which stopped the westward drive of Soviet Russia for the next 20 years.

Author(s):  
Iuliia Vialova ◽  

The article is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Riga (1921), discussions about the significance of which do not stop today. What significance did this treaty have for the history of Europe, and especially for its political architecture of the interwar period? What were the consequences of this agreement for Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians? Estimated of the agreement signed a hundred years ago still differ – some believe that the document then established the borders of Poland almost within the Second Partition of Poland (1793) was the defeat of the then Polish elite, others – that it was an expression of the real state of affairs. This article focuses on the course of Polish-Soviet negotiations during the signing of the treaty, the struggle within the Polish delegation between supports of two state geopolitical concepts (National Democracy “incorporative” and “federal” J. Pilsudski) and establishment of the Eastern border of the Polish state. The well-known Polish diplomat and politician Leon Wasilewski played one of the key roles during these negotiations, and the study of his activities will help to clarify several controversial points during the negotiations. The Treaty of Riga (1921) put an end to the Polish-Bolshevik war, defined the Polish border in the East and the same time cancelled the Petliura-Pilsudski Agreement, which testified to the defeat of the federalist program of J. Pilsudski. Further, the Polish government’s policy towards national minorities later proved to be almost discriminatory, weakening the Polish state from within. For Ukraine and Belarus, this agreement proved to be a national catastrophe, depriving them of the prospects of statehood. This peace can be called a “situational compromise”, which in the short term solved the problem of ending the war, but did not solve any of the geopolitical problems of Poland: neither guaranteed security nor guaranteed the stability of Poland’s Eastern border. The violation of this peace by Soviet Russia was a matter of time, as it happened in 1939


Literary Fact ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 8-53
Author(s):  
Elena R. Obatnina

The biographical essay is dedicated to the literary situation with Alexei Remizov in 1926 connected with his activities for the new journals — Blagonamerenny and Versty. Based on previously unknown materials from Remizov’s personal archive, correspondence and memoirs of his contemporaries involved in the events, the paper interprets Remizov’s position as an active participant of literary process. The paper describes the writer’s creative tasks that were realized in the above-mentioned periodicals, and his mission as a promoter of young talents in Soviet Russia and in emigration. Detailed analysis of the critical articles that accused the editors of both journals as well as their co-worker Remizov of destroying the Russian literary diaspora ideological integrity and aesthetic canons, allows to define the main contradictions in the émigré literary life that had accumulated by 1926. The essay also reconstructs previously unknown episodes in the history of Blagonamerenny and Versty using letters of Remizov, D.A. Shakhovskoy, L. Shestov, N. Berberova that are being introduced into scholarly discourse.


2015 ◽  
pp. 151-158
Author(s):  
A. Zaostrovtsev

The review considers the first attempt in the history of Russian economic thought to give a detailed analysis of informal institutions (IF). It recognizes that in general it was successful: the reader gets acquainted with the original classification of institutions (including informal ones) and their genesis. According to the reviewer the best achievement of the author is his interdisciplinary approach to the study of problems and, moreover, his bias on the achievements of social psychology because the model of human behavior in the economic mainstream is rather primitive. The book makes evident that namely this model limits the ability of economists to analyze IF. The reviewer also shares the author’s position that in the analysis of the IF genesis the economists should highlight the uncertainty and reject economic determinism. Further discussion of IF is hardly possible without referring to this book.


Transfers ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Michael Pesek

This article describes the little-known history of military labor and transport during the East African campaign of World War I. Based on sources from German, Belgian, and British archives and publications, it considers the issue of military transport and supply in the thick of war. Traditional histories of World War I tend to be those of battles, but what follows is a history of roads and footpaths. More than a million Africans served as porters for the troops. Many paid with their lives. The organization of military labor was a huge task for the colonial and military bureaucracies for which they were hardly prepared. However, the need to organize military transport eventually initiated a process of modernization of the colonial state in the Belgian Congo and British East Africa. This process was not without backlash or failure. The Germans lost their well-developed military transport infrastructure during the Allied offensive of 1916. The British and Belgians went to war with the question of transport unresolved. They were unable to recruit enough Africans for military labor, a situation made worse by failures in the supplies by porters of food and medical care. One of the main factors that contributed to the success of German forces was the Allies' failure in the “war of legs.”


2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Robion-Brunner ◽  
Anne Haour ◽  
Marie-Pierre Coustures ◽  
Louis Champion ◽  
Didier Béziat

In the context of the “Crossroads of Empires” project led by Anne Haour, one strand of enquiry aims to understand the history of blacksmith groups and the development of iron production in Dendi country, in the northern Republic of Benin. Numerous remains of iron production have been discovered, showing a great variability in furnace design and waste assemblages. At least three smelting traditions can be distinguished. In this paper, we present the smelting site of Kompa Moussékoubou (10th/11th c. AD) which has been investigated by archaeological and archaeometric methods. Beyond the archaeometallurgical results, the excavation of a 1 x 2 m trench on a settlement mound nearby and survey work, which place the site within its wider context, are also discussed. In particular, we offer a detailed analysis of the ceramics recovered during test pitting and within one of the furnaces itself. This paper thus offers a rare opportunity to combine archaeometallurgical and ceramics data.


Author(s):  
Fabio Franchino

The history of nuclear energy policy in Italy is characterized by major shifts. After being a world leader in nuclear energy production in the 1960s, the country stopped its programme in the 1980s. An attempt at rejuvenating and expanding nuclear energy in the early 2000s came to an end after the Fukushima disaster. In both instances a referendum was held. Party competition, coalition politics, changes in government, and Italy’s institutional features, in particular the provisions for holding referendums, are the main factors explaining these policy reversals. The chapter concludes that a relaunch of the nuclear energy programme does not seem impossible, but is unlikely for the foreseeable future.


Slavic Review ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Himmer

The Russo-Polish War occasioned some of the most anxious moments in the history of relations between Soviet Russia and the Weimar Republic. Within Germany, the advance of the Red Army toward Warsaw in 1920 aroused strong, but contradictory emotions. First, it led many Germans to anticipate the destruction of Poland and to hope for the restoration of the Reich’s former eastern territories. Simultaneously, however, the westward Russian march raised fears of the invasion of Germany by Bolshevik forces. Within Russia, a similar dichotomy of views about Germany existed. On one hand, the German government was considered a hostile, though negligible and temporary—a Communist revolution there was thought imminent—factor in Russia’s situation. On the other, Germany was held important enough to Russia that serious proposals of a far-reaching alliance against Poland and the Entente were made to her. The former view rested on a fundamentally optimistic assessment of Russia’s prospects; the latter, on a sober one. Grounds for concern were afforded by the Soviet Republic’s grave economic problems and by worry about whether the weary Red Army could defeat Pilsudski’s forces, whose offensive capacity had been demonstrated by their capture of Kiev in May 1920. If Germany, which had had military forces in the field against the Bolsheviks only a year before, should actively assist the Poles, Russia’s situation could be appreciably worsened. Surprisingly, therefore, although there are several recent, excellent studies of Soviet-Polish affairs and the Russo-Polish War, and a voluminous literature on relations between the Soviets and the Weimar Republic, little attention has been paid to Soviet policy toward Germany during the conflict with Poland. To explain that policy, and its apparent contradiction, is the purpose of this article.


Risks ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
Oleg Uzhga-Rebrov ◽  
Peter Grabusts

Choosing solutions under risk and uncertainty requires the consideration of several factors. One of the main factors in choosing a solution is modeling the decision maker’s attitude to risk. The expected utility theory was the first approach that allowed to correctly model various nuances of the attitude to risk. Further research in this area has led to the emergence of even more effective approaches to solving this problem. Currently, the most developed theory of choice with respect to decisions under risk conditions is the cumulative prospect theory. This paper presents the development history of various extensions of the original expected utility theory, and the analysis of the main properties of the cumulative prospect theory. The main result of this work is a fuzzy version of the prospect theory, which allows handling fuzzy values of the decisions (prospects). The paper presents the theoretical foundations of the proposed version, an illustrative practical example, and conclusions based on the results obtained.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 018-043
Author(s):  
Rakhim OSHAKBAYEV ◽  
Fatima ZHAKYPOVA ◽  
Bolat ISSAYEV ◽  
Xeniya KOLESNIK

The article examines the image of China in Kazakhstani society, analyzes the perception and attitude of Kazakhstan’s population towards China. Based on the results of a survey of Kazakhstan’s population (N = 2,594) and an expert survey (N = 23), the authors identify the principal stereotypes about China in the mass perception of Kazakhstanis. Also, the authors assess the level of awareness of the population about China and its projects and the perception by the Kazakhstani people of the economic, political and socio-cultural influence of Kazakhstan’s eastern neighbor. In addition, the article examines the attitude of Kazakhstanis to bilateral cooperation between Kazakhstan and China and the manifestations of Sinophobia in Kazakhstani society and identifies the main factors of anti-Chinese sentiments in society. The article also presents the authors’ original model of the China Perception Index in Kazakhstan, which consists of four parameters that reveal the level of cultural, economic and political perception of the country’s eastern neighbor. The results of the study establish that the general attitude of the Kazakhstani society towards China is neutral. The main factor that influences the perception of China is the degree of the Chinese investors’ presence in the region. The study proves the correlation between the duration of the presence of Chinese investors and the scale of business, on the one hand, and the level of perception, on the other: the longer the history of presence in the region, the less positive the attitude of the population towards China. Along with this, the study demonstrates a positive relationship between educational achievements and the China Perception Index. Thus, Kazakhstani citizens with an academic degree (Index = 0.24) have a significantly more positive attitude towards China, compared to those with a secondary technical and vocational education (Index = 0.09).


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