Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus 1968-1988

Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus 1968-1988 PDF Author: Tatsiana Astrouskaya
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783447198462
Category : Belarus
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus 1968-1988

Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus 1968-1988 PDF Author: Tatsiana Astrouskaya
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783447198462
Category : Belarus
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description


To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause PDF Author: Benjamin Nathans
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691117039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 816

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Book Description
"In the 1960s, the Soviet Union found itself unexpectedly challenged from within by a cohort of dissidents who eventually achieved global fame. Their struggle for the rule of law and human rights made them instant heroes in the West, where they appeared as democracy's surrogate soldiers behind the iron curtain. But, as historian Benjamin Nathans argues, theirs was a homegrown phenomenon; activists built the anti-totalitarian movement on fundamental concepts from within the communist pantheon. And their goal was not to topple the Soviet state (a feat they could scarcely imagine) but to exercise a kind of containment of Soviet power from within. Still, the movement was in many ways improbable: a half-century after Lenin launched the world's first socialist society, and a generation after Stalin liquidated millions of "enemies of the people," there was not supposed to be any internal opposition left. What kind of people became dissidents, and how were they able to invent new techniques of social activism, eventually forming the socialist world's first civil and human rights movement? To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause-a title borrowed from the dissidents' favorite toast, pronounced with glasses raised in countless apartments across the USSR's eleven time-zones-tells the story of the people and the ideas that made the movement. Weaving together KGB interrogation and surveillance records with diaries, letters, and an extraordinary number of memoirs, Nathans explains how a movement grew from a chain reaction of individual acts of resistance. He explains its origins in the counterintuitive idea of "civil obedience"-the conviction that human rights could be achieved if only the Soviet regime followed its own constitution and that citizens had to act as if the constitution was the law of the land in the absence of compliance within the governing class. Nathans constructs in detail the lives and struggles of numerous dissidents, including Andrei Sakharov, Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, and Alexander Volpin. He describes the many show trials of activists, the extra-legal tactics of the KGB's Fifth Directorate, the international networks of activism and journalism that fueled the movement at key moments, and the gradual incorporation of dissident ideals into mainstream Soviet political culture. This book offers a definitive history of the group of dissenters who worked from within the Soviet system against the post-Stalinist regime, bringing to life the stories of drama, conflict, tangled relationships, personal sacrifice, and extraordinary devotion to a seemingly impossible cause"--

Belarus in the Twenty-First Century

Belarus in the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: Elena A. Korosteleva
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000883167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive overview of current developments in Belarus. It explores how there has been an upswelling of popular support for the idea that Belarus must change. It highlights how the old regime, aiming to retain the Soviet legacy, reluctant to reform, presiding over worsening economic conditions and refusing to take measures to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, has been confronted by increasing bottom-up social mobilisation which demands a transformation of state-society relations and a new sense of Belarusian peoplehood. The book outlines how the current situation has developed, considers how the present demands for change are deep seated and long brewing trends, and reveals much detail about many aspects of the growing societal mobilisation. Overall, the book demonstrates that, although the old regime remains in power, Belarusian society has changed fundamentally, thereby bringing great hope that change will eventually come about.

Jewish Studies in the Digital Age

Jewish Studies in the Digital Age PDF Author: Gerben Zaagsma
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110744880
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
As in all fields and disciplines of the humanities, Jewish Studies scholars find themselves confronted with the rapidly increasing availability of digital resources (data), new technologies to interrogate and analyze them (tools), and the question of how to critically engage with these developments. This volume discusses how the digital turn has affected the field of Jewish Studies. It explores the current state of the art and probes how digital developments can be harnessed to address the specific questions, challenges and problems that Jewish Studies scholars confront. In a field characterised by dispersed sources, and heterogeneous scripts and languages that speak to a multitude of cultures and histories, of abundance as well as loss, what is the promise of Digital Humanities methods--and what are the challenges and pitfalls? The articles in this volume were originally presented at the international conference #DHJewish - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age, which was organised at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) at University of Luxembourg in January 2021. The first big international conference of its kind, it brought together more than sixty scholars and heritage practitioners to discuss how the digital turn affects the field of Jewish Studies.

Communism's Shadow

Communism's Shadow PDF Author: Grigore Pop-Eleches
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400887828
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
It has long been assumed that the historical legacy of Soviet Communism would have an important effect on post-communist states. However, prior research has focused primarily on the institutional legacy of communism. Communism's Shadow instead turns the focus to the individuals who inhabit post-communist countries, presenting a rigorous assessment of the legacy of communism on political attitudes. Post-communist citizens hold political, economic, and social opinions that consistently differ from individuals in other countries. Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker introduce two distinct frameworks to explain these differences, the first of which focuses on the effects of living in a post-communist country, and the second on living through communism. Drawing on large-scale research encompassing post-communist states and other countries around the globe, the authors demonstrate that living through communism has a clear, consistent influence on why citizens in post-communist countries are, on average, less supportive of democracy and markets and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The longer citizens have lived through communism, especially as adults, the greater their support for beliefs associated with communist ideology—the one exception being opinions regarding gender equality. A thorough and nuanced examination of communist legacies' lasting influence on public opinion, Communism's Shadow highlights the ways in which political beliefs can outlast institutional regimes.

Cultural Perspectives, Geopolitics, & Energy Security of Eurasia

Cultural Perspectives, Geopolitics, & Energy Security of Eurasia PDF Author: Mahir Ibrahimov
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781940804316
Category : Eurasia
Languages : en
Pages :

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The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906–1931

The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906–1931 PDF Author: Per Anders Rudling
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822979586
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Modern Belarusian nationalism emerged in the early twentieth century during a dramatic period that included a mass exodus, multiple occupations, seven years of warfare, and the partition of the Belarusian lands. In this original history, Per Anders Rudling traces the evolution of modern Belarusian nationalism from its origins in late imperial Russia to the early 1930s. The revolution of 1905 opened a window of opportunity, and debates swirled around definitions of ethnic, racial, or cultural belonging. By March of 1918, a small group of nationalists had declared the formation of a Belarusian People's Republic (BNR), with territories based on ethnographic claims. Less than a year later, the Soviets claimed roughly the same area for a Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Belarusian statehood was declared no less than six times between 1918 and 1920. In 1921, the treaty of Riga officially divided the Belarusian lands between Poland and the Soviet Union. Polish authorities subjected Western Belarus to policies of assimilation, alienating much of the population. At the same time, the Soviet establishment of Belarusian-language cultural and educational institutions in Eastern Belarus stimulated national activism in Western Belarus. Sporadic partisan warfare against Polish authorities occurred until the mid-1920s, with Lithuanian and Soviet support. On both sides of the border, Belarusian activists engaged in a process of mythmaking and national mobilization. By 1926, Belarusian political activism had peaked, but then waned when coups d'etats brought authoritarian rule to Poland and Lithuania. The year 1927 saw a crackdown on the Western Belarusian national movement, and in Eastern Belarus, Stalin's consolidation of power led to a brutal transformation of society and the uprooting of Belarusian national communists. As a small group of elites, Belarusian nationalists had been dependent on German, Lithuanian, Polish, and Soviet sponsors since 1915. The geopolitical rivalry provided opportunities, but also liabilities. After 1926, maneuvering this complex and progressively hostile landscape became difficult. Support from Kaunas and Moscow for the Western Belarusian nationalists attracted the interest of the Polish authorities, and the increasingly autonomous republican institutions in Minsk became a concern for the central government in the Kremlin. As Rudling shows, Belarus was a historic battleground that served as a political tool, borderland, and buffer zone between greater powers. Nationalism arrived late, was limited to a relatively small elite, and was suppressed in its early stages. The tumultuous process, however, established the idea of Belarusian statehood, left behind a modern foundation myth, and bequeathed the institutional framework of a proto-state, all of which resurfaced as building blocks for national consolidation when Belarus gained independence in 1991.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania: Country Studies

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania: Country Studies PDF Author: Walter Iwaskiw
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781490435572
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
This volume is one in a continuing series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. This volume is about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Freedom in the World 2006

Freedom in the World 2006 PDF Author: Freedom House
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742558038
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 924

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Book Description
Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 192 countries and a group of select territories are used by policy makers, the media, international corporations, and civic activists and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. Press accounts of the survey findings appear in hundreds of influential newspapers in the United States and abroad and form the basis of numerous radio and television reports. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

A History of the Soviet Union, 1945-1991

A History of the Soviet Union, 1945-1991 PDF Author: John L. H. Keep
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192803191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
The Soviet Union is a subject of enduring fascination for the whole of the Western world. This book focuses on the main cultures, political, social, and economic developments in the USSR since 1945.