Scholars, Politicians, and the Production of Soviet Assimilation Narratives

2021 ◽  
pp. 144-178
Author(s):  
Krista A. Goff
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
The Public Sphere

The chapter focuses on the trajectory of Talysh national identifications and classifications, which was being erased from the public sphere in the Soviet Union. It explores why Talyshes were vulnerable to assimilatory politics and the architecture of Soviet myths of nontitular assimilation. It also argues that theories of Soviet modernity, as well as Talysh ethnonational ties to Iran, are key variables that shaped Talysh experiences in the Soviet Union. The chapter mentions A. A. Isupov, the head of the Administration's Department of the All-Union Census, who invoked an ethnographer's account of Talysh assimilation to explain that the Talysh men were not Talysh but Azerbaijani. It explains how censuses have constitutive power and in the Soviet Union, which played an important role in naturalizing discourses of minority assimilation.

“Airing Our Dirty Linen in Public”: Lidiia Chukovskaia, Nadezhda Mandeľshtam, and Competing Visions for a Liberal Soviet Counterpublic

Slavic Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-799
Author(s):  
Lusia Zaitseva
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Conservative Attitude ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Dirty Linen ◽  
At Home

This article contributes to the study of gender and dissidence in the Soviet Union by examining the feud between two significant authors of cultural samizdat and tamizdat—Nadezhda Mandeľshtam and Lidiia Chukovskaia—through an updated feminist lens. It draws on prose unpublished in their lifetimes and presents previously undiscovered writing by Mandeľshtam in order to examine the origins and substance of their feud. I argue that their distinctive modes of authorship date to their relationship with Anna Akhmatova and subsequent differing approaches to her legacy. These approaches reveal their shared conservative attitude regarding gender and moral authority in the nascent liberal Soviet counterpublic as well as their diverging understandings of how the transnational public sphere could help bring about much-needed changes at home. These attitudes shaped how they regarded each other and continue to have salience for our understanding of women's participation in the public sphere in Russia today.

scholarly journals Kazakhstani immigration policy impact for ethno-demographic structural changes

2019 ◽  
pp. 80-100
Author(s):  
Shugatai Amangul
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
Immigration Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Nation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Past Wrongs

 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kazakhstan government implemented ethnic-based immigration policies which call for ethnic Kazakhs from abroad return to their historical homeland. In 1991, Kazakhstan started a repatriation process of calling back its ethnic Kazakh to belong to the new nation, and to their new found ethnic identity. The immigration policies has including the “repatriation process of ethnics”, have helped significantly as Kazakhs tries to reconcile past wrongs, increase internal stability and conserve national identity. Because of the Soviet era much of Kazakh language and traditional cultures was sufficiently reduced in the public sphere, and the ethnic composition in this country was dominated by non-titular ethnics Thus, that ethnic immigration policy focused on change ethno-demographic structure of the Kazakhstan and increasing the total population size. This article focused to analyze the results of the ethnic immigration policy of Kazakhstan, how it has changed the immigration policy over the last 30 years. Казахстан улсын угсаатны шилжилт хөдөлгөөний бодлого, түүний үр дүн Хураангуй: 1991 онд Зөвлөлт Холбоот Улс (ЗХУ) задарч, Бүгд Найрамдах Казахстан Улс (БНКазУ) байгуулагдсаны дараа тус улсад хүн амын “олон улсын шилжилт хөдөлгөөн”-ий урсгал эрчимтэй явагдаж эхэлсэн билээ. Шинээр тусгаар тогтносон БНКазУ хүн амын тогтвортой өсөлтийг дэмжих, нийт хүн амд казах угсаатны эзлэх хэмжээг нэмэгдүүлэх замаар угсаатны бүтцээ өөрчлөх, нийгэм эдийн засгийн хөгжилтэй уялдуулан хүн амын амьжиргааны түвшинг дээшлүүлэх зэрэг зорилтуудыг дэвшүүлсэн. Энэ хүрээнд дэлхийн өнцөг булан бүрээс казах угсаатнуудыг өөрсдийн “түүхэн эх нутаг” (historical homeland) болох БНКазУ-д шилжин ирж суурьших уриа дуудлага болгож, хүн амын шилжилт хөдөлгөөний тусгай бодлогыг хэрэгжүүлсэн. Ингэснээр БНКазУ-ыг чиглэсэн казах үндэстний хил дамнасан шилжилт хөдөлгөөн бүс нутгийн ба дэлхийн хэмжээнд эрчимтэй өрнөж, өнөөдрийг хүртэл тасралтгүй үргэлжилж байна. Энэхүү өгүүлэлд БНКазУ-ын Засгийн газраас нийт хүн амд эзлэх казах үндэстний тоог нэмэгдүүлэх, угсаатны бүтцийг өөрчлөхийн тулд 1991 оноос хойш 30 орчим жилийн хугацаанд хэрэгжүүлж буй шилжилт хөдөлгөөний (цагаачлал) бодлогын хэрэгжилт, түүний үр дүнд задлан шинжилгээ хийхийг зорилоо. Түлхүүр үг: Бүгд Найрамдах Казахстан Улс, хүн ам зүйн бодлого, угсаатны бүтцийн өөрчлөлт, диаспора, казах үндэстний шилжилт хөдөлгөөн

scholarly journals Deficiencies of Official Bilingualism in the Finno-Ugric Republics of Post-Soviet Russia: A Legal Perspective

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (62) ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantin Zamyatin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
The Public ◽  
Regional Language ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Official Status ◽  
Local Languages

As a part of the “parade of sovereignties” during the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the national republics of Russia designated both Russian and local languages as their state languages. The co-official status of the dominant Russian language by default prevented full-fledged official bilingualism, and serious steps were needed to promote non-dominant local languages in the public sphere. Beyond a mere formal recognition of their official status, the republican authorities passed regulations in order to provide institutional support for the local languages, the amount of which varied across republics. However, the extent of such regulations remains understudied and the best way to evaluate it would be a comparative analysis. What was the level of institutionalization of the official status in the case of titular languages in Russia’s republics? This study examines various solutions for framing the official status of titular languages in regional language legislations in order to understand the patterns of institutionalization. The republics titled after the Finno-Ugric peoples were chosen as case studies for the comparison. The study reveals that language legislation contains serious deficiencies in institutionalization of the official status of titular languages, which impede possibilities for their practical use in office.

Tibetan Reform and the Kalmyk Revival of Buddhism

Inner Asia ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Initial Step ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Historical Practices

AbstractThe anti-religious campaigns of the Soviet Union in the 1930s eradicated Kalmyk Buddhism from the public sphere. Following perestroika the Kalmyks retain a sense of being an essentially Buddhist people. Accordingly, the new Kalmyk government is reviving the religion with the building of temples and the attempted training of Kalmyk monks, yet monasticism is proving too alien for young post-soviets. According to traditional Kalmyk Gelug Buddhism authoritative Buddhist teachers must be monks, so monastic Tibetans from India have been invited to the republic to help revive Buddhism. The subsequent labelling by these monks of 'surviving' Kalmyk Buddhist practices as superstitious, mistaken or corrupt is an initial step in the purification of alternate views, leading to religious reform. This appraisal of historical practices is encouraged by younger Kalmyks who do not find sense in surviving Buddhism but are enthused with the philosophical approach taught by visiting Buddhist teachers at Dharma centres. By discussing this post-Soviet shift in local notions of religious efficacy, I show how the social movements of both reform and revival arise as collusion between contemporary Tibetan and Kalmyk views on the nature of true Buddhism.

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

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