scholarly journals Russia and Azerbaijan

1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-105
Author(s):  
Talip Kucukcan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Early Period ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Independent States ◽  
North And South ◽  
Bear Witness

The last centuries of human history bear witness to the generation of havocand carnage brought about by the disintegration of world empires and superpowersthat ruled vast areas inhabited by people of different ethnic. religious,and national backgrounds. One such event took place in the early period of thiscentury: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Its downfall left a power vacuumin many areas of the Balkans. North Africa and the Middle East. Out of the ashesof its ruin, new and independent states emerged.Toward the end of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union totally disintegratedand suddenly disappeared from the international scene in a relatively shorttime. As mentioned. history has recorded the gradual decline and final fall ofgreat empires. The collapse of the Soviet Union differs from other olderempires. We will draw a comparison between its disintegration and the fall ofthe older Ottoman Empire.There are abundant scholarly and literary analyses indicating that the OttomanEmpire underwent a process of gradual dismantling from it initial decline to itsfinal collapse. The Soviet Union, however, underwent an abrupt end to its reignand. entered ultimate oblivion without experiencing a prolonged loss of vitality.This abrupt fall and quick end may be auributed to various factors, from the failureof economic policies to the yearning for freedom. including the revival ofethnic, religious. and national identities. These are the points emphasized bySwietochowski's timely book on Russia and Azerbaijan.The current wave of world events exerts itself nor only upon the political elitebut also within academic quarters and on publishing trends. As the 1979 Iranianrevolution drew greater attention to Islam and was followed by the establishmentof new departments of Islamic studies and the publication of hundreds ofbooks on the subject, the collapse of the Soviet Union generated a significantamount of interest and, accordingly, academicians and publishing housesresponded to the growing search to know more about the region.Swietochowski's look should be considered a significant contribution to theseeffons.It is a widely held observation thal the disintegration of Lhe Soviet Union dramaticallychanged and traumatized the geopolitical and geocullural landscape ofthe area. Swietochowski's book concentrates specifically on Azerbaijan byexamining closely the last two centuries of this unknown land's history. As thetitle Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition suggests, the authordeals with a people whose land is divided between north and south. He usesarchival sources, official documents, and numerous books and articles written invarious languages to inform readers about a land and a people about which littlewas known before the Soviet Union's downfall. Swietochowski's work ...

scholarly journals The Place of Central Asian Turkic Republics in the Global World

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esra Karapınar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The World ◽  
Independent States ◽  
Global World ◽  
Second World

Globalization process which started at the end of nineteenth century and goes on at the present shows its impacts more in some countries or less in some other countries but this is a process that closes up countries, blots out authorities’ immunities, makes them become transparent, and strengthens socio-cultural, political and especially economic relations. After the terms of being introverted and self-sufficiency between First and Second World Wars, struggles to liberalized world trade have been accelerated since 1960, and good and service flows between countries grew both as a volume and value. As a result of liberalization and deregulation politics which appears since 1980, the capital could move easier on the world. So, how has this process felt its effect on the Central Asian Turkic Republics includes Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan that arised in 1991 after dissociation in the Soviet Union because of clearing and reconstruction policy applied and after facility of establishing its own, independent states by earning their national identities to Turkish elements who lived under the sovereignty of Russians for years is given? The aim of study here is to analyse the effects of that globalization wave in the Turkic Republics which spread out all over the world. For this purpose, first of all changes in the Soviet Union 's policy will be considered and reflections of it on the economical life are to be investigated, and then applications and what the course of actions about integration with the World determined by mentioned republics after dissociation are to be discussed.

scholarly journals Russia’s Foreign Policy Evolution in the New Balkan Landscape

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Entina ◽  
Alexander Pivovarenko
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Difference

The article reflects on the issue of the foreign policy strategy of modern Russia in the Balkans region. One of the most significant aspects of this problem is the difference in views between Russia and the West. Authors show how different interpretations of the events in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s predetermined the sense of mutual suspicion and mistrust which spread to other regions such as the post-Soviet space. Exploring differences between the Russian and the Western (Euro-Atlantic) views on the current matters, authors draw attention to fundamental differences in terminology: while the Western narrative promotes more narrow geographical and political definitions (such as the Western Balkan Six), traditional Russian experts are more inclined to wider or integral definitions such as “the Balkans” and “Central and Southeast Europe”. Meanwhile none of these terms are applicable for analysis of the current trends such as the growing transit role of the Balkans region and its embedding in the European regional security architecture. Therefore, a new definition is needed to overcome the differences in vision and better understand significant recent developments in the region. Conceptualizing major foreign policy events in Central and Southeast Europe during the last three decades (the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s), authors demonstrate the significance of differences in tools and methods between the Soviet Union and the modern Russia. Permanent need for adaptation to changing political and security context led to inconsistence in Russian Balkan policy in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Russia was able to preserve an integral vision of the region and even to elaborate new transregional constructive projects, which in right political circumstances may promote stability and become beneficial for both Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community.

scholarly journals One for all, each on its own: Analysing the post-Soviet system of collective security

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-110
Author(s):  
David Erkomaishvili
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Subsequent Transformation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Security Relations ◽  
Independent States ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
Post Soviet Space

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 allowed independent states, which emerged in its place, to construct their own alignments. The choice of the case for empirical analysis had been made based on several unique characteristics. Orthodox Alliance Theory had almost never properly addressed alignments in the post-Soviet space due to the lack of access to information during the Soviet period - along with the structure of the state: only Soviet alignment policies were taken into consideration, instead of those of its constituent republics as well - and modest interest of alliance theorists in the region. Continued disintegration of the post-Soviet space, which has not stopped with the collapse of the Soviet Union but keeps fragmenting further, creates a unique setting for researching the adequacy of Alliance Theory's classic assumptions as well as developing new approaches. This work traces the development of the post-Soviet system of collective security and its subsequent transformation into a series of bilateral security relations, along with the shortfall of multilateralism.

Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia since the End of Communism

2013 ◽  
pp. 424-462
Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Period ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent States

This chapter highlights how the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union initiated a new period in the history of the Jews in the area. Poland was now a fully sovereign country, and Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Moldova also became independent states. Post-imperial Russia faced the task of creating a new form of national identity. This was to prove more difficult than in other post-imperial states since, unlike Britain and France, the tsarist empire and its successor, the Soviet Union, had not so much been the ruler of a colonial empire as an empire itself. All of these countries now embarked, with differing degrees of enthusiasm, on the difficult task of creating liberal democratic states with market economies. For the Jews of the area, the new political situation allowed both the creation and development of Jewish institutions and the fostering of Jewish cultural life in much freer conditions, but also facilitated emigration to Israel, North America, and western Europe on a much larger scale.

Economic containment as a strategy of Great Power competition

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (6) ◽  
pp. 1423-1441
Author(s):  
Dong Jung Kim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Viable Option ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Distinct Strategy

Abstract Economic containment has garnered repeated attention in the discourse about the United States' response to China. Yet, the attributes of economic containment as a distinct strategy of Great Power competition remain unclear. Moreover, the conditions under which a leading power can employ economic containment against a challenging power remain theoretically unelaborated. This article first suggests that economic containment refers to the use of economic policies to weaken the targeted state's material capacity to start military aggression, rather than to influence the competitor's behaviour over a specific issue. Then, this article suggests that economic containment becomes a viable option when the leading power has the ability to inflict more losses on the challenging power through economic restrictions, and this ability is largely determined by the availability of alternative economic partners. When the leading power cannot effectively inflict more losses on the challenging power due to the presence of alternative economic partners, it is better off avoiding economic containment. The author substantiates these arguments through case-studies of the United States' responses to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The article concludes by examining the nature of the United States' recent economic restrictions against China.

Invasion and Occupation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Prusin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Military Power ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Economic Space ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Chain Of Command ◽  
Political Economic

Examines German rule imposed on Serbia after the collapse in Yugoslavia in April 1941. Obsessed with the preparation for the war against the Soviet Union, Hitler relegated Serbia to a source-depot of food supplies and raw materials within the Third Reich’s political-economic space. As a hinterland for the German forces in the Balkans, Serbia became a “state of emergency,” whereby the system of governing was simplified to the direct chain of command from top to bottom for the purpose of fulfilling specific tasks. Initially, the April catastrophe facilitated the image of Germany as an invincible military power and seemingly extinguished popular will to resistance.

Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 802-804
Author(s):  
Nilgun Onder
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Regime Transition ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Independent States ◽  
Central Asian Republics

Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia, Kathleen Collins, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 376.The long isolation of Central Asia finally ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Five new independent states emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union, the very first time in history that the peoples of Central Asia gained their own independent states modelled on the modern state. This development caught the world, including Central Asians themselves, by surprise. It changed the geopolitics of the entire Eurasia. In the ensuing years, the Central Asian republics have undergone simultaneous multiple transformations: state building; political regime transformation; and transition from Soviet communism. Thus the new states in Central Asia have provided scholars with new cases of multiple economic and political transitions to study and compare. In recent years, there has been a significant proliferation of English-language publications on Central Asia. Kathleen Collin's book, a comparative historical study of political development in Central Asia, is a major contribution. While its focus is on Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, it often provides examples from the other two Central Asian republics, namely Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It is thoroughly researched and rich in information and details. It also makes a significant contribution to the political science literature on democratization, regime transition and consolidation.

Can We Live as One Family? Rethinking the Two Koreas' Kinship in John Hoon's Kang Tek-koo

2004 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-283
Author(s):  
SUK-YOUNG KIM
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Dynamics ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Language ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
North And South

John Hoon's play, Kang Tek-koo, tells the story of the unexpected encounter between two half-brothers, one South Korean and the other North Korean, in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the play, the conventional tragic scene of the reunion of the family members separated by the Korean War is dealt with in a resilient comic spirit from the perspective of a younger generation of South Koreans. This article examines the production of Kang Tek-koo by the South Korean company Apple Theatre, which took place in 2001 – a time when the fluid dynamics of globalization were encompassing Korea, and the transnational flow of media, people, and ideology opened up the possibility for North and South Koreans to interact and search for a common language, culture, home and nationhood.

A Utopian Vision? A Modest Proposal to Prevent Nations from Causing Future Wars

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-549
Author(s):  
Nicolae Harsanyi
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sweet Taste ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Modest Proposal ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Cold War

I certainly find the present times most engaging: I have had the chance to live through events that will not be neglected by historians—the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the subsequent end of the Cold War, the failed Moscow coup and the breathtaking aftermath of undoing “mankind's golden dream” in its very cradle, the Soviet Union. There is so much hope in the air for East Europeans to return to development which was thwarted by decades of imposed socialist dictatorship. The sweet taste of freedom and self-assertion helps people to overcome the economic hardships ravaging the area. From the Baltic to the Balkans, from the Tatra to the Caucasus and beyond, nations, nationalities, and minorities show signs of vitality and righteous affirmation of their own complex existence on territories fragmented by conventional boundaries established with or without their own consent or approval.

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