Iran’s Foreign Policy in 1933-1939: Problems of Diversifying Relations with Leading World Powers

The article is devoted to the problems of modernizing Iran’s foreign policy strategy on the eve of World War II, the implementation of a set of measures to diversify its relations with the leading world powers. The factors influencing the formation of the conflict relations of Iran with Great Britain and the USSR are revealed. The features of the nationalist policy of the Reza Shah regime, aimed at liberating the country from British control and weakening Soviet influence in the country, are traced. Particular attention is paid to the formation of a pro-German course in Iran’s foreign policy. The author emphasizes that the ideological factor (Nazi propaganda about the common Aryan origin of the Germans and Iranians) played an important role in the rapprochement of the Shah’s regime of Iran with the Nazi leadership of Germany. It is stated that the rapprochement of Iran with Germany contributed to the growth of tension in Europe, the intensification of the confrontation between the bloc of fascist states and the camp of anti-fascist forces. It is also noted that as a result of the Iranian-German rapprochement, Moscow’s relations with Tehran found themselves in a crisis situation: the strengthening of Nazi influence in Iran prompted the USSR leadership to take urgent measures to ensure reliable protection of the country’s southern borders against the threat of a German attack.

Psychological Strategies for Overcoming the Life Crisis of the Individual in Postmodern Practical Psychology

The article talks about the personality-oriented approach of postmodern practical psychology to counseling a crisis client. Coping strategies for overcoming a life crisis by a person at the cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels are analyzed. Based on the consideration of practical work with crisis clients, algorithms for overcoming a crisis situation in the form of stages and phases of its experience are highlighted. The important role of neuropsychological correction at the first stage of work with the client is emphasized. Theoretical and methodological provisions of postmodern psychotherapy and practical psychology on the features of psychological support of a crisis client, taking into account his personal resource. The variability of the personality as one of its fundamental properties and the psychological mechanism providing a flexible choice of coping strategies, process of adaptation to conditions of crisis situation are considered. It is revealed that in the conditions of overcoming the life crisis there are personal transformations as expression and development of specific personal characteristics and properties. The model of overcoming a life crisis situation by an individual in the context of postmodern practical psychology is presented. In the presented author’s model of overcoming the personal crisis the postmodernist, personality-oriented and phenomenological approaches are applied.

Rapport Management in President Buhari and Governor Sanwo-Olu’s Speeches on #EndSARS Protest in Nigeria

Speech making in politics is an essential tool used to manage relationships between politicians and the electorate. The success of a speech depends on the content and the discourse and linguistic strategies employed to achieve speakers’ communicative goals. Political speeches have been widely studied, but extant studies have given tangential attention to the management of rapport in speeches of political office holders delivered in crisis situation in Nigeria. Two speeches delivered by President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu (GBS) on the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria, downloaded from www.guardian.ng and www.premiumtimesng.com respectively, were purposively selected and analysed using Rapport Management theory. This is with the view to accounting for the linguistic elements and discourse strategies and their functions in maintaining harmonious relationship in selected texts. Linguistic elements such as the inclusive “we”, the institutional “I”, collective/possessive “us” “our” “your” and descriptive adjectives and strategies such as claiming common ground, expressing solidarity, showing empathy were employed to manage rapport and achieve communicative goals by PMB and GBS. While GBS tactically avoids utterances that are rapport threatening, some utterances of PMB have the tendency to impair rapport. He however mitigates them through hedging, personalisation, institutionalisation and testimonial argument.

Local government fighting COVID-19: the Case of Slovenian Municipalities

When the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus broke out, it was initially assumed that Slovenian municipalities would successfully cope with the crisis situation due to their experience in dealing with natural and other disasters. Nevertheless, the unprecedented pandemic posed significant challenges to local governments, especially in the first wave, from managing responses to an unknown crisis situation to ensuring the safety of citizens in times of extreme uncertainty. Using a four-dimensional framework, the article analyses the results of the first post-COVID-19 survey of mayors of Slovenian municipalities, which reveals differences and similarities in policies to contain and prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus disease. The analysis proves that there is no single and well-established procedure for dealing with a crisis situation. Indeed, responses varied from municipality to municipality, and the intensity of action depended to a large extent on the commitment, initiative and innovation of the individual mayor.

Crisis and Language in Ray Bradbury’s The Last Night of the World

Language use in social crisis situations is usually described as being highly ideological, and it exhibits features of affect involving the use of negative evaluation of the perceived social enemies. The present study aims to explore the characters’ language use in Ray Bradbury’s short story entitled The Last Night of the World from a pragma-stylistic perspective. The fictional dialogue that takes place between the two protagonists creates and reflects the dynamics between them, where the unspeakable is only inferred rather than communicated. The analysis reveals special features of verbal communication in a crisis situation, especially focusing on the lexical and morphosyntactic properties, as well as on the verbal interaction and cooperation between the characters revealing their alignment. The results of the analysis prove that the verbal and non-verbal communication between the protagonists do not show the features described in crisis communication; therefore, the text of the story can be interpreted as subverting the generic language use in a critical situation.

don de la siesta

Miguel Ángel Hernández aborda la siesta como una resistencia en lo cotidiano. Incluyendo teoría, literatura, arte y autobiografía (pues el autor se nos presenta como un buen practicante de estas siestas), nos vemos sumergidos en un mapa de referencias sobre el sesteo que son miradas desde la situación actual de crisis sanitaria. Su escritura tiene la capacidad de, alguna forma, bajar a nuestros contextos, creando en el lector una sensación de común, de lazos culturales y vínculos sociales marcados por la necesidad de volver a pensar desde este momento de descanso colectivo (aunque cada uno lo practique en su casa) tras el mediodía. En esta reseña nos centraremos especialmente en su forma de entrelazar este ejercicio de memoria en primera persona con referencias artísticas y teóricas, siendo coherente con un formato de escritura basado en anotaciones mucho más horizontales y abiertas que una investigación rigurosamente acotada. Miguel Ángel Hernández approaches the nap as a resistance in the everyday. Including theory, literature, art and autobiography (as the author presents himself as a good practitioner of these naps), we are immersed in a map of references on napping that are looked at from the current health crisis situation. His writing has the capacity to come down to our contexts, creating in the reader a sense of commonality, of cultural ties and social links marked by the need to rethink from this moment of collective rest (even if each one practices it at home) after midday. In this review we will focus especially on his way of interweaving this exercise of first-person memory with artistic and theoretical references, being coherent with a writing format based on annotations that are much more horizontal and open than a rigorously bounded investigation.

GAME METHODS OF PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC HELP IN A CRISIS SITUATION

Понимание конструкции рабочей памяти и структуры образов в индивидуальной модели мира является основной задачей образной психологии. Ключевой момент решения задачи — выяснение принципов адаптации к недостатку знаний о мире. Игровые методы обучения не только восполняют недостаток, но и позволяют обрести полезные навыки поведения. В данной работе наблюдали за тем, как опыт, полученный в ходе индивидуальных и групповых игр, помогает находить выход их семейного кризиса. Подводя итог игре, участники отметили последовательность плодотворного влияния игры на преодоление кризиса. Во-первых, формировался конструктивный подход к решению проблем в основе кризиса. Во-вторых, восстановительные мотивации приходили на смену разрушительным, провоцировавшим конфликты и предвзятые негативные оценочные суждения. В-третьих, в результате игрового обучения отрабатывались навыки урегулирования разногласий. В-четвертых, благодаря прояснению общих целей членов семьи открывалась перспектива упрочения внутрисемейных отношений в рамках общепринятой модели взаимодействия. Визуализация образа межличностных отношений облегчала понимание причин кризиса и нахождение выхода из кризисной ситуации. По мнению, высказанному участниками при подведении итогов игрового моделирования семейных кризисов, игра является эффективной формой обучения, снабжающего знаниями о природе кризиса и способах его преодоления. Одновременно игра обладает психотерапевтическим эффектом, поскольку мобилизует интеллект, избавляя от последствий негативных переживаний, вызванных кризисной ситуацией. Understanding the construction of working memory and the structure of images in an individual model of the world is the main task of figurative psychology. The key point of task solution is to find out the principles of adaptation to the lack of knowledge about the world. Game-based learning methods not only make up for the lack, but also allow to acquire useful behavioral skills. In this work, we observed how the experience gained during individual and group games helps to find a way out of the family crisis. Summing up the game, the participants noted the sequence of the fruitful influence of the game on overcoming the crisis. First, a constructive approach to solving the problems at the heart of the crisis was formed. Secondly, restorative motivations replaced destructive ones that provoked conflicts and biased negative value judgments. Thirdly, as a result of game learning, the skills of dispute resolution were worked out. Fourth, due to the clarification of the common goals of family members, the prospect of strengthening intra-family relations within the framework of the generally accepted model of interaction opened up. Visualization of the image of interpersonal relationships made it easier to understand the causes of the crisis and to find a way out of the crisis situation. According to the opinion expressed by the participants when summing up the results of the game modeling of family crises, the game is an effective form of learning that provides knowledge about the nature of the crisis and ways to overcome it. At the same time, the game has a psychotherapeutic effect, since it mobilizes the intellect, eliminating the consequences of negative experiences caused by a crisis situation.

Digital Transformation of Education: Envisioning Post-Covid Education in Latvia

The project “Life with COVID-19: Evaluation of overcoming the coronavirus crisis in Latvia and recommendations for societal resilience in the future” (CoLife) was launched in Latvia in the summer of 2020. In this project, researchers representing different fields of social sciences were involved; researchers of education sciences were aiming to find out how the COVID-19 crisis contributed to the digital transformation of education and which changes in education caused by the COVID-19 crisis situation should be maintained in the future. The results of the project are a scientific prognosis on future action scenarios related to the digital transformation of education in Latvia, scientifically backed recommendations for related competency transformation, and tools for evaluating proposed solutions from the perspective of education to conceptualize recommendations for policy-makers on the digital transformation of education in relation to the digitalization and use of digital solutions at all levels of education (preschool, general education, higher education), thus laying the foundation for establishing and implementing a flexible and student-focused education. This article is dedicated to conceptualizing the recommendations for policy-makers on the digital transformation of education using the Delphi method.