scholarly journals The First Book about the Czechoslovak Republic in the USSR: “The Modern Czecho-Slovakia” by Pavel N. Mostovenko

2021 ◽  
pp. 78-99
Author(s):  
Nikolaj N. Stankov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
World War I ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
History Of

The article dwells upon the book “The Modern Czecho-Slovakia” by Pavel N. Mostovenko — the Soviet representative in Prague from June, 1921 till February, 1923. The author of the article supposes that Mostovenko began to work on this book immediately after his return from Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1923 following his fresh impressions and having all the necessary materials. All the chapters of this book embraced a wide range of problems: a brief history of Czechia, the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic, its social and economic development, the financial system, the constitution of 1920 and the functioning of the state machinery, the leading political parties, the relations among different ethnic groups, home and foreign policy. In the USSR Mostovenko’s book was the first attempt at interpreting the history of the Czechoslovak Republic from the point of view of the communist ideology. At the same time, the author of the article states that in Mostovenko’s book quite a few aspects of the development of Czechoslovakia at the beginning of 1920s are interpreted in a way different from the documents of Comintern and the Soviet press of that period. The author of the article proves that Mostovenko on the basis of the analysis of the international relations in Central Europe after World War I predicted that in case of an essential breach of the balances of powers in the Versailles system of international relations, Czechoslovakia would became its first victim and neither France nor the allies in the Little Entente would help it. Exactly this happened in 1938.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

scholarly journals ‘‘Human soul is destroyed by war...’’: written sources of World War I period as a resource for gender-oriented history of emotions

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-277
Author(s):  
Olga V Churakova
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Anthropology ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Women's Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Peasant Women ◽  
Written Sources

The article analyzes the problems and prospects of using written sources of World War I period for a gender studies approach to Russia’s past, in line with the history of emotions in cultural-historical anthropology. The terms “emotions” and “feelings” are viewed as synonyms. The article states that what the historian encounters in the sources is mostly an emotional state or mood (personal or collective) as well as experiences, passions or sensations, rather than “pure” emotions and feelings. The corpus of “gender-marked” written sources of the 1914-1918 period is huge and varied, and includes materials from archives, collections of party commissions, published memoirs, letters, diaries, the women’s press, as well as profile documents (“self-census”) of female students. However, these sources unevenly reflect the feelings and the emotional background of the era. Following the conceptual framework developed by Barbara Rosenwein, we can speak of several emotional communities defined by the social affiliation and the “audibility” of the particular voices in history, i.e. the representativeness of the sources. The first category of emotional communities comprises the women of the Romanov family and noblewomen more broadly. Russian and foreign archives boast extensive collections of their personal documents. The second category includes “frontovichky” - frontline women-soldiers. Urban women belong to a third category, and are represented by memory-based stories, the women’s press, female students’ profiles, and documents from regional archives. From the point of view of emotions, the biggest yet least represented community were peasant women. While their everyday life and values have been well researched, only very few notes and diaries from their hands have survived. Letters to the front were partially preserved (esp. those intercepted by the authorities) and are now stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation). For the identification of the psychological matrix of the era it is crucial to use the full set of these sources.

The Theory of Lateral Pressure: Highlights of Quantification and Empirical Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazli Choucri ◽  
Gaurav Agarwal
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Lateral Pressure ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Dynamics Modeling ◽  
World War ◽  
Wide Range

The term lateral pressure refers to any tendency (or propensity) of states, firms, and other entities to expand their activities and exert influence and control beyond their established boundaries, whether for economic, political, military, scientific, religious, or other purposes. Framed by Robert C. North and Nazli Choucri, the theory addresses the sources and consequences of such a tendency. This chapter presents the core features—assumptions, logic, core variables, and dynamics—and summarizes the quantitative work undertaken to date. Some aspects of the theory analysis are more readily quantifiable than others. Some are consistent with conventional theory in international relations. Others are based on insights and evidence from other areas of knowledge, thus departing from tradition in potentially significant ways. Initially applied to the causes of war, the theory focuses on the question of: Who does what, when, how, and with what consequences? The causal logic in lateral pressure theory runs from the internal drivers (i.e., the master variables that shape the profiles of states) through the intervening variables (i.e., aggregated and articulated demands given prevailing capabilities), and the outcomes often generate added complexities. To the extent that states expand their activities outside territorial boundaries, driven by a wide range of capabilities and motivations, they are likely to encounter other states similarly engaged. The intersection among spheres of influence is the first step in complex dynamics that lead to hostilities, escalation, and eventually conflict and violence. The quantitative analysis of lateral pressure theory consists of six distinct phases. The first phase began with a large-scale, cross-national, multiple equation econometric investigation of the 45 years leading to World War I, followed by a system of simultaneous equations representing conflict dynamics among competing powers in the post–World War II era. The second phase is a detailed econometric analysis of Japan over the span of more than a century and two World Wars. The third phase of lateral pressure involves system dynamics modeling of growth and expansion of states from 1970s to the end of the 20th century and explores the use of fuzzy logic in this process. The fourth phase focuses on the state-based sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gases to endogenize the natural environment in the study of international relations. The fifth phase presents a detailed ontology of the driving variables shaping lateral pressure and their critical constituents in order to (a) frame their interconnections, (b) capture knowledge on sustainable development, (c) create knowledge management methods for the search, retrieval, and use of knowledge on sustainable development and (d) examine the use of visualization techniques for knowledge display and analysis. The sixth, and most recent, phase of lateral pressure theory and empirical analysis examines the new realities created by the construction of cyberspace and interactions with the traditional international order.

scholarly journals Anarchy Is What Explains the History of International Relations

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
William C. Wohlforth
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
World War ◽  
National Interests ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Antecedents ◽  
The Great War

The article examines the major events of the two previous centuries of international relations through main concepts of political realism. The author argues that in order to understand the present dilemmas and challenges of international politics, we need to know the past. Every current major global problem has historical antecedents. History from the late 19th century constitutes the empirical foundation of much theoretical scholarship on international politics. The breakdown of the Concert of Europe and the outbreak of the devastating global conflagration of World War I are the events that sparked the modern study of international relations. The great war of 1914 to 1918 underlined the tragic wastefulness of the institution of war. It caused scholars to confront one of the most enduring puzzles of the study of international relations, why humans continue to resort to this self-destructive method of conflict resolution? The article shows that the main explanation is the anarchical system of international relations. It produces security dilemma, incentives to free ride and uncertainty of intentions among great powers making war a rational tool to secure their national interests.

Peace and Security from a Feminist Perspective

2018 ◽  
pp. 14-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ann Tickner
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Women Activists ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
World War ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
History Of

Almost one hundred years ago women from both sides of World War I came together to design a postwar peace plan, the principles of which were remarkably similar to UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Since then, women activists have worked to place gender issues on the United Nations agenda. In the late 1980s, feminist international relations began to address peace and security from a gendered perspective. With this in mind, this chapter traces the history of the intersection between women’s activism and this emergent feminist scholarship. Feminists scholarship defines security as the physical and economic security of individuals as well as states. The scholars question the essentialist association of women and peace and advocate seeing women as agents in all aspects of peacemaking, positions that the international community is finally beginning to recognize. This chapter, as such, explores how feminist scholars have constructed knowledge that contributes to our understanding of the deeper reasons why women suffer particular physical and structural insecurities.

scholarly journals The centenary of World War I in Serbia: A war of monuments

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Alexey Y. Timofeev
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Republika Srpska ◽  
Memorial Sites ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World

The anniversary of the First World War in Serbia has become an oc-casion for exacerbating public discussion and drawing attention to the rise of revisionism in NATO countries. Fear of a revision of the history of World War I infl uenced Serbian society and elites on the eve of the centenary. The concerned Serb elites responded with a wide range of events organized in Serbia and Republika Srpska. Within the framework of the commemorative events dedicated to the anniversary, monuments, installed and restored by the Serbian authorities and their foreign part-ners, have received special signifi cance. These were monuments to the Serbian patriot G. Princip, to the famous Iron Regiment, to the woman volunteer-soldier Milunka Savic. They are traditional fi gures of the Ser-bian memory of the First World War. At the same time, Serbian authori-ties did not succeed in their attempt to perpetuate in monumental forms the head of the Serbian military intelligence D. Dimitrievic-Apis, the leader of the Serbian nationalist organization Black Hand, which patron-ized the Mlada Bosna organization that prepared the assassination on Franz Ferdinand. The Russian-Serbian monuments of the First World War in Serbia presenting Nicholas II and the military brotherhood of the two peoples were of special signifi cance. All new monuments have become memorial sites and at the same time attractive points for vari-ous political forces expressing their sympathies and antipathies through symbolic gestures towards them.

The economy and accounting sophistication: An overview of Transylvania

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-123
Author(s):  
Adela Deaconu ◽  
Crina I Filip
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
World War I ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Economic History ◽  
World War ◽  
European Context ◽  
Accounting Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Double Entry

Based on historiography and documentary research, this study juxtaposes the economic history of the Principality of Transylvania against the general evolution of accounting practice and thought, and makes comparisons with the general European context. Along with providing evidence for a less-researched area, the discussion on the sophistication of accounting through successive stages – from 1541 to 1918 – is useful for enabling other regional comparative studies. This study argues that there was a delay in the evolution of accounting in Transylvania compared to the development of European accounting, with the gap growing smaller towards the end of World War I. The pace of economic development, initially extremely slow, increased and triggered the emergence of capitalism, hence the development of double-entry bookkeeping and scientific accounting. In this way, Sombart’s ideas and the post-Sombart theses are supported. Imperial (Austro-Hungarian) political domination and the region’s social structure played an important role in this setting. Observing other external channels of the spread of accounting, the study confirms the validity of the diffusionist theory.

Nurses Across Borders: Displaced Russian and Soviet Nurses after World War I and World War II

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Grant ◽  
Alice Fisher Fellow
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Migration History ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Russian and Soviet nurse refugees faced myriad challenges attempting to become registered nurses in North America and elsewhere after the World War II. By drawing primarily on International Council of Nurses refugee files, a picture can be pieced together of the fate that befell many of those women who left Russia and later the Soviet Union because of revolution and war in the years after 1917. The history of first (after World War I) and second (after World War II) wave émigré nurses, integrated into the broader historical narrative, reveals that professional identity was just as important to these women as national identity. This became especially so after World War II, when Russian and Soviet refugee nurses resettled in the West. Individual accounts become interwoven on an international canvas that brings together a wide range of personal experiences from women based in Russia, the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. The commonality of experience among Russian nurses as they attempted to establish their professional identities highlights, through the prism of Russia, the importance of the history of the displaced nurse experience in the wider context of international migration history.

The New History of World War I and What It Means for International Relations Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keir A. Lieber
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Defensive Realism ◽  
Spiral Model

World War I looms large in international relations theory. The core concepts of defensive realism—the security dilemma, spiral model, and offense-defense balance—were largely inspired by this single historical case, and evidence from the war is frequently used to test explanations built on those concepts. The new historiography of World War I, however, challenges many of the long-held assumptions about the origins of the conflict. Newly available evidence strongly suggests that German leaders went to war in 1914 with eyes wide open. They provoked a war to achieve their goal of dominating the European continent, and did so aware that the coming conflict would almost certainly be long and bloody. Germany's leaders did not go to war with a bold operational blueprint for quick victory embodied in the Schlieffen Plan; they did not misjudge the nature of modern war; and they did not lose control of events on the eve of the conflict and attack out of fear that Germany's enemies would move first. In light of the new history, international relations scholars should reexamine their empirical understandings of this conflict, as well as their theoretical presuppositions about the causes of war.

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