scholarly journals Words Instruct, Illustrations Lead: The National Question after the October Revolution

Monitor ISH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Tomaž Ivešić
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Question

The paper focuses on the development of Marxist-Leninist views on the phenomenon of nationalism and on the evolution of nations. The germs of the idea of a socialist nationality can be found already before WWI. After the October Revolution, the Stalinist practice of solving the national question was marked by the process of Korenizatsiya: the Bolsheviks emphasised the nationalities in the Soviet Union, hoping that this would accelerate the transition to socialism. This policy was likewise adopted in Yugoslavia during and immediately after WWII.

India of 1920s as Seen by Soviet Playwright, Consulting Indologists, Theater Critics

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Igor Yu. Kotin ◽  
Nina G. Krasnodembskaya ◽  
Elena S. Soboleva
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
10Th Anniversary ◽  
Russian Academy Of Sciences ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Detailed Picture

The authors of this contribution analyze the circumstances and the history of a popular play that was staged in the Soviet Union in 1927-1928. Titled Jumah Masjid, this play was devoted to the anti-colonial movement in India. A manuscript of the play, not indicating its title and the name of its author, was found in the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences among the papers related to A.M. and L.A. Meerwarth, members of the First Russian Expedition to Ceylon and India (1914-1918). Later on, two copies of this play under the title The Jumah Masjid were found in the Russian Archive of Literature and Art and in the Museum of the Tovstonogov Grand Drama Theatre. The authors of this article use archival and published sources to analyze the reasons for writing and staging the play. They consider the image of India as portrayed by a Soviet playwright in conjunction with Indologists that served as consultants, and as seen by theater critics and by the audience (according to what the press reflected). Arguably, the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia in 1927 and the VI Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1928 encouraged writing and staging the play. The detailed picture of the anti-colonial struggle in India that the play offered suggests that professional Indologists were consulted. At the same time the play is critical of the non-violent opposition encouraged by Mahatma Gandhi as well as the Indian National Congress and its political wing known as the Swaraj Party. The research demonstrates that the author of the play was G.S. Venetsianov, and his Indologist consultants were Alexander and Liudmila Meerwarth.

The Soviet Union's Secret Diplomacy Concerning the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1924–1925

1994 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 459-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce A. Elleman
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
Soviet Power ◽  
The South ◽  
Soviet Authority ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Majority Control ◽  
Beijing Government

Following the october revolution, the Soviet Union regained majority control over the strategically located Chinese Eastern Railway, which ran through Manchuria, by signing two previously unpublished secret agreements: the first with the Beijing government on May 31, 1924, and the second with Zhang Zuolin's government in Manchuria on September 20, 1924. These secret agreements were signed despite the Soviet government's repeated promise that it would never resort to secret diplomacy. The Soviet Union also renewed control over the Russian-built Chinese Eastern Railway despite a 1919 Soviet manifesto promising that this railway would be turned over to China without compensation. To consolidate Soviet power over this railway, the USSR then signed the January 20, 1925, convention with Japan that recognized Japan's authority over the South Manchurian Railway in return for Japan's acquiescence to full Soviet authority over the Chinese Eastern Railway.

scholarly journals An old Soviet response and a revolutionary context: Dealing with the national question in the committees of the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies (1989–1991)

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-61
Author(s):  
Carolina de Stefano
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
National Crisis ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Question ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Creation

The article deals with the parliamentary representation of ethnic/national interests and demands in the crisis years between 1989 and 1991, culminating in the collapse of the Soviet Union. It focuses primarily on the proliferation of committees dealing with ethnonational questions after the creation of the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, a parliamentary body that existed from 1989 until 1991. The article shows that the new parliamentary architecture was not only the inevitable consequence of social and national mobilization but also an expression of the Union center’s response to the ongoing national crisis. Building mostly upon unpublished archival material, the article focuses on debates in 1989–1991 within the Committee of Nationalities Affairs and Interethnic Issues of the USSR Supreme Soviet. In so doing, it identifies some of the dilemmas the committee faced and some of the changes in its functioning brought about glasnost and perestroika. The article makes two key contributions. First, it helps to shed much-needed light on Soviet nationalities policy during perestroika. Second, the analysis of debates internal to parliamentary committees in those critical years contributes to the existing literature on Soviet and Russian parliamentarism and institutional transformation during the transition from the USSR to the Russian Federation.

The Importance of Being Ethnic: Minorities in Post-Soviet States—The Case of Russians in Kazakstan

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Davis ◽  
Steven O. Sabol
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Ethnic Tensions ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Question ◽  
Gorbachev Era

IntroductionThe fall of the Soviet Union prompted an outpouring of concern over borders, identity, and stability. Many students of the region predicted that the breakup would lead to violence and instability. Scholars of the Soviet region emphasized cultural pluralism—in particular ethnic and religious pluralism or the “national question”—as the ultimate lesson of the Gorbachev era. In other words, ignore ethnicity at your own peril. To this point, that has not been the case. There have been only a few areas where instability, ethnic strife, and violence have been rampant—the Transdniestr region, Tajikistan, and Chechnia in particular. Why has this been the case? The lack of ethnic violence and severe ethnic tensions in this diverse region should lead one to reconsider the role of ethnicity in politics.

scholarly journals On the characteristics of endemic goiter in the Gorky region

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 74-75
Author(s):  
V. N. Leporsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Endemic Goiter ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Keynote Speech

At the 22nd All-Union Congress of Surgeons, V.S. Levit, in his keynote speech, highlighting the distribution of endemic goiter in the Soviet Union, noted that goiter occurs in the Nizhny Novgorod Territory in the region of Murom and Kovrov. Before the Great October Revolution, the issues of endemic goiter in the Nizhny Novgorod province were not studied

scholarly journals What Is the Collapse of the USSR?

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-201
Author(s):  
D.S. Shevsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Fiscal Crisis ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
Load Bearing ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Main Culprit ◽  
Ussr State

The article justifies why the collapse of the Soviet Union should be analyzed as the intersection of a number of diverse processes and phenomena. According to the author, the existing discord within the discussion about the reasons for the collapse of the USSR can be largely explained by the fact that researchers are not trying to determine the essence of the phenomenon they are studying and to reveal the totality of its features. The lack of the reflection on what exactly the end of the existence of the USSR was and when it happened, leads to isolating individual components of the process. As a result, some authors associate the collapse of the USSR with the dire economic straits, others consider the rise of nationalism to be the main culprit, others emphasize the role of specific actors, etc. In order to determine what exactly the collapse of the USSR meant and when it happened, the author identifies the fundamental characteristics of the entity itself, dividing it into the USSR-system and the USSR-state, and traces how these characteristics changed. His research shows that the collapse of the USSR can be divided into at least two different, albeit related processes: the collapse of the system and the collapse of the state. The collapse of the system meant a change in a self-describing narrative, the most important elements of which were the discourse of the indisputable achievements of the 1917 October Revolution, the CPSU’s monopoly of power and its monolithic nature, confrontation with the capitalist countries and the socialist (state-owned) economy. It is the breakdown of these “load-bearing structures” that predetermined the future collapse of the state, making it possible for destructive factors to materialize in the form of a fiscal crisis, intra-elite conflict and mass mobilization.

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