scholarly journals Non-citizens in Latvia: Is it a Real Problem?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Status ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Real Problem ◽  
International Pressure ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Economic

Non-citizens in Latvia: Is it a Real Problem?Following the restoration of independence in 1991, Latvia has introduced restrictive citizenship strategy involving citizenship only to those who had it before the Soviet occupation, and to their descendants. As a result, about one-third of the population in Latvia – the former citizens of the Soviet Union who had immigrated to Latvia during the Soviet period—received the status of ‘non-citizen’. In the 1990s, political discourse on the citizenship policy dominated in Latvia. Exclusive Citizenship Act was criticized by international institutions, including the UN, EU, OSCE and CoE. As a result of international pressure Latvia has introduced appropriate amendments to facilitate access to citizenship for non-citizens. Non-citizens and stateless in Latvia represent 11.8% and 0.01% of the population, respectively, which is more than 252 thousand residents of Latvia. It means that non-citizenship phenomenon has not been resolved completely. A few Latvian regulations restrict non-citizens and stateless to participate in elections, occupy public positions and offices, and travel. This article addresses the problem of non-citizenship as a second matter of concerns in Latvian domestic policy. While limitations for non-citizens implicate their political, economic and social status, Latvian authority is far from granting citizenship to non-citizens in ‘zero option’ procedure.  Nieobywatele na Łotwie: czy problem jest aktualny?Po odzyskaniu niepodległości Łotwa w 1991 roku wprowadziła restrykcyjną strategię obywatelstwa, polegającą na przywróceniu obywatelstwa jedynie tym osobom, które posiadały je przed okupacją sowiecką, oraz ich potomkom. W wyniku tego około jednej trzeciej populacji na Łotwie – byłych obywateli Związku Radzieckiego przybyłych na Łotwę w okresie sowieckim – otrzymało status „nieobywatela”. W latach dziewięćdziesiątych kwestia obywatelstwa zdominowała dyskurs polityczny na Łotwie, a wyłączająca ustawa o obywatelstwie była krytykowana przez różne instytucje międzynarodowe, w tym ONZ, UE, OBWE i Radę Europy. Międzynarodowa presja spowodowała, że Łotwa wprowadziła stosowne poprawki, ułatwiając dostęp do obywatelstwa dla nieobywateli. Obecnie nieobywatele stanowią 11,8%, a bezpaństwowcy – niecałe 0,01% populacji, co wynosi łącznie ponad 252 tys. mieszkańców Łotwy. Oznacza to, że problem braku obywatelstwa nie został rozwiązany całkowicie. Niektóre regulacje ograniczające prawa nieobywateli i bezpaństwowców odnoszą się do prawa wyborczego, możliwości zajmowania pewnych stanowisk i urzędów oraz podróży. Artykuł poświęcony jest zjawisku braku obywatelstwa na Łotwie, które obecnie nie jest przedmiotem większego zainteresowania władz Łotwy. Regulacje ograniczające prawa nieobywateli wpływają na ich status polityczny, ekonomiczny i społeczny, jednak podjęcie decyzji o automatycznym obywatelstwie dla nieobywateli przez władze Łotwy jest mało prawdopodobne.

scholarly journals Economic History in the Topics of Dissertation Research in Russia (1991–2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Sergey A. Bakanov ◽  
Ivan A. Medvedev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Library

Introduction. This article deals with the subject of thesis in the direction of “Economic history”, which were prepared and defended in Russia in the post-Soviet period (1991–2019). The dissolution of the Soviet Union is getting rid of research from ideological clichés, which made the topic of economic history relevant and in demand. Materials and Methods. On the basis of the e-catalog of authors’ abstracts of the Russian State Library, the database “Dissertations on economic history of the late XX – early XXI centuries” was formed. The bibliographic information about the authors’ abstracts became the formal attributes of the described database. The analytical units were the attributes of the “geographical range”, “chronological frame” and “research problem”. Results. The analysis of the database showed that during the entire period were formed stable trends scientific subdirectories within the frame of economic history (history of industry, history of agriculture, history of entrepreneurship, history of banks, etc.), and in maintaining the status of leading research centers. The historical period from the second half of the XIX to the first half of the XX centuries attracts the main attention of the authors of thesis on economic history. Discussion and Conclusion. A quantitative analysis of the dynamic of thesis defenses showed a decline in the interest of authors of thesis in the problems of economic history in the 2010s. The key factors of this decline were changes in the requirements to thesis. Nevertheless, the authors believe that the direction of “economic history” has a potential to overcome designated problems.

Problems and Unproblems in Soviet Social Theory

Slavic Review ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis S. Feuer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Intellectual Community ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Mathematical Sciences ◽  
The Government ◽  
Life Work

The status of sociology and philosophy in the Soviet Union is radically different from that of the physical and mathematical sciences. The sociologists and philosophers are still regarded by the government as ideologists, whereas the mathematicians and physicists are considered scientists; and the ideologist is in low repute in the Soviet intellectual community. Thirty years ago, Nikolai Bukharin observed in a remarkable essay that the cultural style of the current Soviet period would be technicism, and that the humanities and historical sciences would be relegated to the background. He believed that this “one-sidedness“ was founded on the economic requirements of the time. Probably, however, the hollowness in the life of the Soviet ideologist is equally responsible for his low estate. The sociologists and philosophers are not regarded as independent thinkers; their job as ideological workers is to provide a documentation and footnoted commentary on the decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Young men of ability consequently tend to avoid choosing a life work in the social sciences and philosophy. Why, they say, should they sacrifice their intellectual independence at the outset of their lives?

From Nationalism to Nation-Building: Latvian Politics and Minority Policy

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Galbreath
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Baltic

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of Latvia, a minority group became a majority and a majority group became a minority. This has been the situation for Latvians and Russians after August 1991. The Baltic States led the way towards first autonomy and then independence. The nationalist movement in the Latvian SSR was primarily a minority nationalist movement. Why do minorities mobilise? Gurr finds that minorities rebel for two reasons: relative deprivation and group mobilisation. Relative deprivation answers the question of why and it characterizes the status of the Latvian language and culture vis-à-vis that of Russia during the Soviet period. While relative deprivation has come under considerable criticism because of its inability to explain when a group will mobilise, the notion can be found in the nationalist rhetoric before and since the restoration of Latvian independence. Group mobilisation goes further in explaining when minorities may assert political claims. Considered in terms of changes in the political opportunity structure, the changing politics of glasnost allowed the nationalist movements to mobilise in the Baltic States.

Ārzemju ceļojumu iespaidi latviešu rakstnieku darbos t. s. „Brežņeva laikmetā”: liecības par atļauto un liegto

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Jānis Oga
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
American Anthropologist ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
Post Soviet Period

This paper examines travels outside the Soviet Union by Latvian writers who were recognised by the occupation regime and acclaimed by the public during the Brezhnev era –from the 1960s into the 1980s – as one of the privileges enjoyed by the so-called creative intelligentsia, and how those travels were reflected in their literary and journalistic writings. The writers studied were born between 1910 and 1939 and can be seen as belonging to three different generations. The generational differences have a significant impact on how their experiences were treated in their works. Some of the texts considered in this paper are manifestations of their authors’ authentic creativity, whilst others exhibit obeisance to the status quo of their time and obligatory praise for the regime. But can a line between the two be clearly drawn? What were the goals and possibilities for travel among recognized and materially secure writers? What were they permitted to tell those readers who had no such travel opportunities? How did the notes they published in periodicals differ from the versions that later appeared in books? The methodological basis for this paper is the work of Alexei Yurchak, a Russian-born American anthropologist who provides a unique understanding of the concept of ‘the abroad’ (заграница) in the Soviet Union as demarcating not actual borders or territory but an imagined space, and the insights of the Canadian historian Anne E. Gorsuch about Soviet tourism abroad. Gorsuch has studied how Soviet citizens internalised Soviet norms and supported Soviet goals, but also the attempts by tourists to evade official constraints on their experience in foreign lands and how they sought to devise their own individual itineraries. Journeys abroad elicited conflicting emotions. Writers had to be comparatively affluent to travel, but they often experienced humiliation when confronted with the reality of their meager financial means outside the U.S.S.R. and the fact that they remained in durance even in the free world. Versions of their writings published in the post-Soviet period and later commentaries bear witness to episodes that could not be described in the Brezhnev era as well as self-censorship.

Not by Firkowicz’s Fault: Daniel Chwolson’s Comic Blunders in Research of Hebrew Epigraphy of the Crimea and Caucasus, and their Impact on Jewish Studies in Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-668
Author(s):  
Michael Nosonovsky ◽  
Dan Shapira ◽  
Daria Vasyutinsky-Shapira
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
Academic Argument

AbstractDaniel Chwolson (1819–1911) made a huge impact upon the research of Hebrew epigraphy from the Crimea and Caucasus. Despite that, his role in the more-than-a-century-long controversy regarding Crimean Hebrew tomb inscriptions has not been well studied. Chwolson, at first, adopted Abraham Firkowicz’s forgeries, and then quickly realized his mistake; however, he could not back up. Th e criticism by both Abraham Harkavy and German Hebraists questioned Chwolson’s scholarly qualifications and integrity. Consequently, the interference of political pressure into the academic argument resulted in the prevailing of the scholarly flawed opinion. We revisit the interpretation of these findings by Russian, Jewish, Karaite and Georgian historians in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the Soviet period, Jewish Studies in the USSR were in neglect and nobody seriously studied the whole complex of the inscriptions from the South of Russia / the Soviet Union. The remnants of the scholarly community were hypnotized by Chwolson’s authority, who was the teacher of their teachers’ teachers. At the same time, Western scholars did not have access to these materials and/or lacked the understanding of the broader context, and thus a number of erroneous Chwolson’s conclusion have entered academic literature for decades.

Utopias of One

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Kotin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War I ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Original Research ◽  
The Soviet Union

This book is a new account of utopian writing. It examines how eight writers—Henry David Thoreau, W. E. B. Du Bois, Osip and Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Anna Akhmatova, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and J. H. Prynne—construct utopias of one within and against modernity's two large-scale attempts to harmonize individual and collective interests: liberalism and communism. The book begins in the United States between the buildup to the Civil War and the end of Jim Crow; continues in the Soviet Union between Stalinism and the late Soviet period; and concludes in England and the United States between World War I and the end of the Cold War. In this way it captures how writers from disparate geopolitical contexts resist state and normative power to construct perfect worlds—for themselves alone. The book contributes to debates about literature and politics, presenting innovative arguments about aesthetic difficulty, personal autonomy, and complicity and dissent. It models a new approach to transnational and comparative scholarship, combining original research in English and Russian to illuminate more than a century and a half of literary and political history.

POST-SOVIET CITY AS A PALIMPSEST

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-68
Author(s):  
Elena A. Kosovan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
The Coordinator ◽  
Post Soviet Period

The author of the publication reviews the photobook “Palimpsests”, published in 2018 in the publishing house “Ad Marginem Press” with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The book presents photos of post-Soviet cities taken by M. Sher. Preface, the author of which is the coordinator of the “Democracy” program of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Russia N. Fatykhova, as well as articles by M. Trudolyubov and K. Bush, which accompany these photos, contain explanation of the peculiarities of urban space formation and patterns of its habitation in the Soviet Union times and in the post-Soviet period. The author of the publication highly appreciates the publication under review. Analyzing the photographic works of M. Sher and their interpretation undertaken in the articles, the author of the publication agrees with the main conclusions of N. Fatykhova, M. Trudolyubov and K. Bush with regards to the importance of the role of the state in the processes of urban development and urbanization in the Soviet and post-Soviet space, but points out that the second factor that has a key influence on these processes is ownership relations. The paper positively assesses the approach proposed by the authors of the photobook to the study of the post-Soviet city as an architectural and landscape palimpsest consisting mainly of two layers, “socialist” and “capitalist”. The author of the publication specifically emphasizes the importance of analyzing the archetypal component of this palimpsest, pointing out that the articles published in the reviewed book do not pay sufficient attention to this issue. Particular importance is attributed by the author to the issue of metageography of post-Soviet cities and meta-geographical approach to their exploration. Emphasizing that the urban palimpsest is a system of realities, each in turn including a multitude of ideas, meanings, symbols, and interpretations, the author points out that the photobook “Palimpsests” is actually an invitation to a scientific game with space, which should start a new direction in the study of post-Soviet urban space.

Development of the Legal Framework for Regulating Relations for the Training and Retraining of Judges in the Soviet Period (1946–1991)

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 39-47
Author(s):  
S. I. Pukhnarevich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
The Soviet Union

The article shows the formation of the legal basis for the formation, development and functioning of the system of training and retraining of judicial personnel in the country in the period from 1946 until the end of the USSR. The article also explores the forms and approaches to the organization of improving the quality of the staff of the judicial system. It was concluded that the Soviet Union has formed an ideologically oriented, strictly centralized Federal-Republican system of professional development of court employees.

scholarly journals “As quiet as a mouse”: Media use in Azerbaijan

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (s1) ◽  
pp. 893-911
Author(s):  
Ilgar Seyidov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Media System ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Supportive Role ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One

AbstractDuring the Soviet period, the media served as one of the main propagandist tools of the authoritarian regime, using a standardized and monotype media system across the Soviet Republics. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, 15 countries became independent. The transition from Soviet communism to capitalism has led to the reconstruction of economic, socio-cultural, and political systems. One of the most affected institutions in post-Soviet countries was the media. Media have played a supportive role during rough times, when there was, on the one hand, the struggle for liberation and sovereignty, and, on the other hand, the need for nation building. It has been almost 30 years since the Soviet Republics achieved independence, yet the media have not been freed from political control and continue to serve as ideological apparatuses of authoritarian regimes in post-Soviet countries. Freedom of speech and independent media are still under threat. The current study focuses on media use in Azerbaijan, one of the under-researched post-Soviet countries. The interviews for this study were conducted with 40 participants living in Nakhichevan and Baku. In-depth, semi-structured interview techniques were used as research method. Findings are discussed under six main themes in the conclusion.

RUSSIAN DIASPORA. SUMMATION AND RESEARCH PROSPECTS

2020 ◽  
pp. 130-143
Author(s):  
Irina V. Sabennikova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Significant Phenomenon ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Principles

The historiography of any historically significant phenomenon goes through several stages in its development. At the beginning − it is the reaction of contemporaries to the event they experienced, which is emotional in nature and is expressed in a journalistic form. The next stage can be called a retrospective understanding of the event by its actual participants or witnesses, and only at the third stage there does appear the objective scientific research bringing value-neutral assessments of the phenomenon under study and belonging to subsequent generations of researchers. The history of The Russian Diaspora and most notably of the Russian post-revolutionary emigration passed to the full through all the stages of the issue historiography. The third stage of its studying dates from the late 1980s and is characterized by a scientific, politically unbiased study of the phenomenon of the Russian emigration community, expanding the source base and scientific research methods. During the Soviet period in Russian historiography, owing to ideological reasons, researchers ‘ access to archival documents was limited, which is why scientific study of the history of the Russian Diaspora was not possible. Western researchers also could not fully develop that issue, since they were deprived of important sources kept in Russian archives. Political changes in the perestroika years and especially in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union increased attention to the Russian Diaspora, which was facilitated by a change in scientific paradigms, methodological principles, the opening of archives and, as a result, the expansion of the source base necessary for studying that issue. The historiography of the Russian Diaspora, which has been formed for more than thirty years, needs to be understood. The article provides a brief analysis of the historiography, identifies the main directions of its development, the research problematics, and defines shortcomings and prospects.

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