Yakutsk Self-Government Elections During the First World War

The paper provides the analysis of the city self-government structure and election process in Yakutsk. The purpose of this work was to comprehensively review the elections to the City Duma and City Council in Yakutsk during the First World War (1915–1917) and clarify the staff of the city self-government. The scientific novelty is that the staff of Yakutsk self-government and elections to the City Duma and City Council of 1915 are analyzed for the first time using such cognitive methods as historicism, objectivity, consistency, and complexity. Using a comparative-historical method made it possible to determine the cause-and-effect relations and regularities of the historical development of the phenomenon under study. The research revealed that during the elections of 1915, the citizens became more interested in the activities of the public self-government, as evidenced by the first pre-election meetings. The elected city self-government had a majority of officials. At the end of 1916, a project was developed to reorganize the city council office. That project was suggested to increase the complexity of functions and regulations and the number and staff of self-government structures and was to become the next stage in the development of Yakutsk public self-government. Practical relevance of the research is that the results of the study can be used for further study of the cities of Siberia. The article is intended for historians and everyone interested in the history of Yakutia. Keywords: city council, city duma, city regulation of 1892, city council members, election meeting, office of the city council

GAME OF WORDS: INSTRUMENTS IN POWER AND INSTRUMENTS OF POWER

The study's purpose is to analyze the elements of the pre-election meeting between Ahmed Dogan and the residents of the village of Kochan, Satovcha Municipality, which qualify it as a pseudo-event. The integration of these elements provoked planned affective reactions from the media, political leaders and the electorate, which swung the vote. Two research questions were asked: How do external elements such as context, place and time, and characteristics of the message qualify Ahmed Dogan's pre-election meeting as a pseudo-event? What public communication effects do the integration of the internal and external elements of the pre-election meeting cause, which qualify the meeting as a pseudo-event? The subject of study is the pre-election meeting between Ahmed Dogan and the residents of the village of Kochan. The study's object is the context, place, time, message (speech) and media-mediated reactions of the political leaders. The methodology of qualitative research is based on the pragmatism paradigm. The methodological triangulation of the agitation propaganda theory and agenda-building engineering are used. Methodological triangulation includes critical discourse analysis and axeologematic analysis. The main conclusions are that the meeting between Ahmed Dogan was a pseudo-event that developed according to a strictly defined scenario and provoked emotional reactions among political leaders and voters. The media could have easily ignored pseudo-events coverage if they had focused on the event's weight and impact rather than the speaker of the event.

THE NOMINATION OF CANDIDATES FOR DEPUTIES AS A RITUAL ELEMENT OF SOVIET OSTENSIBLE DEMOCRACY

The study deals with features of the procedure of the nomination of candidates for workers' deputies during the election campaigns to the Supreme Soviets of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and local governments in the Ukrainian SSR of the post-war period. Legislative, organizational, and propaganda aspects of the process of running for power are analyzed. The procedure did not comply with constitutional norms, as, contrary to the Constitution, only one non-alternative candidate was nominated from each constituency, using non-legal buttons of their selection. Pre-election meetings were defined as one of the fundamental steps of the electoral process and as a ritual element of Soviet ostensible democracy. Pre-election events were controlled by party bodies, which neutralized the democratic principles of forming a representative branch of government and made it impossible to create a truly popular representation. The author defines the criteria that the authorities used for forming the deputy corps of different levels and describes the ideal version of the Soviet representative of the people. Describing officials' difficulties in nominating candidates for deputies to local councils, the author gives statistics and reasons for the rejection of nominees at this level at the election meeting. Difficulties in the organization and conduct of the nomination procedure in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR due to the prevalence of anti-Soviet sentiment in the region and the activities of the nationalist underground were noted. It has been observed that every year citizens showed a more and more indifferent attitude to the elections due to the formality and politicization of the election procedure. Moreover, the parliamentary representation formed under party control did not correlate with society's political and social stratification. Keywords: Ukrainian SSR, postwar period, Soviet election campaigns, election meetings, candidates for workers' deputies.

Academic Library and Information Science: Twenty-Year Anniversary

The Department of Library and Information Science (DLIS) - the Public-Research Division of the International Informatization Academy (IIA) - celebrated its 20th anniversary. There is presented the information on the Jubilee Annual Portback Election Meeting and the Fourth Academic Readings of DLIS IIA.