Russian Ethnographers in the Service of Empire, 1856-1862

Slavic Review ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine B. Clay

Several young Russian and Ukrainian writers responded to the era of Great Reforms by taking up a new enterprise: literary ethnography. Their ethnographic expeditions and reports of 1856 to 1862 manifested new political, cultural and social scientific movements within the empire. They not only investigated obstacles to forging a diverse, multinational population into a common empire, they also called the attention of educated Russians and the Russian state to cultural legacies of the countryside. Some were deemed worthy of preservation; others seemed inconsistent with modern ways. They sought a new socio-political path for the public. In these ways they began to link the various peoples in the empire, the imperial state and educated Russia at a time of social and political disclocation.

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan G. Gross

In the public understanding of science, rhetoric has two distinct roles: it is both a theory capable of analysing public understanding and an activity capable of creating it. In its analytical role, rhetoric reveals two dominant models of public understanding: the deficit model and the contextual model. In the deficit model, rhetoric acts in the minor role of creating public understanding by accommodating the facts and methods of science to public needs and limitations. In the contextual model, rhetoric and rhetorical analysis play major roles. Rhetorical analysis provides an independent source of evidence to secure social scientific claims; in addition, it supplies the grounds for a rhetoric of reconstruction, one that reconstitutes the fact and facts of science in the public interest.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-173
Author(s):  
Fedor L. Sinitsyn

This article examines the development of social control in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, who was General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1964 to 1982. Historians have largely neglected this question, especially with regard to its evolution and efficiency. Research is based on sources in the Russian State Archive of Modern History (RGANI), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) and the Moscow Central State Archive (TSGAM). During Brezhnevs rule, Soviet propaganda reached the peak of its development. However, despite the fact that authorities tried to improve it, the system was ritualistic, unconvincing, unwieldy, and favored quantity over quality. The same was true for political education, which did little more than inspire sullen passivity in its students. Although officials recognized these failings, their response was ineffective, and over time Soviet propaganda increasingly lost its potency. At the same time, there were new trends in the system of social control. Authorities tried to have a foot in both camps - to strengthen censorship, and at the same time to get feedback from the public. However, many were afraid to express any criticism openly. In turn, the government used data on peoples sentiments only to try to control their thoughts. As a result, it did not respond to matters that concerned the public. These problems only increased during the era of stagnation and contributed to the decline and subsequent collapse of the Soviet system.


Author(s):  
John Gastil ◽  
Laura Black

The discipline of communication encompasses a broad spectrum of humanistic, interpretive, and social scientific approaches to studying public deliberation. Early work engaged Habermasian theories of the public sphere, and rhetorical scholarship has foregrounded the deliberative threads running back to the discipline’s earliest history in ancient Greece. The bulk of contemporary work, however, has examined the dynamics of deliberation, particularly in the context of face-to-face discussions and dialogues in small groups. These studies have revealed the importance of narrative and dialogic exchanges during deliberation, as well as the critical role of facilitation and the maintenance of deliberative norms. Research has also assessed the practical consequences of participating in deliberation. The discipline’s practical orientation has led some scholars to seek ways to optimize deliberative designs to maximize simultaneously the quality of their decision outputs and their civic impacts on participants.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-373
Author(s):  
Irina V Sinova

The article deals with the issues related to the evolution of the use of women in the civil service at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries on the example of the Maritime Ministry on the basis of previously unpublished documents stored in the Russian state archive of the Navy and periodical press materials. The study of gender issues can be of scientific interest on the basis of its documents, as practically not in demand in research related to the women’s issue. As a result of the struggle of the public, there were some concessions on the part of the authorities related to the expansion of women’s access to fill certain positions in a number of areas that experienced a lack of certain qualifications, including public service, in the conditions of intensive bourgeois development. The article analyzes the legal acts regulating the work of women, especially in the public service. it is shown how the changes that took place in the Russian Empire influenced the transformation of the socio-economic situation of women in General, and, also, became a reflection of the social policy of the state. The article reveals the attitude of the heads of departments of the Ministry to the admission of women to the public service, as well as their opinion on the degree of necessity for the service itself in attracting women to it. The article deals with the arguments of men - heads of departments of the Ministry, related to the impact of women’s work on home life, on the family and on itself, which differed largely by philistine assessments, rather than progressive views. In fact, on the part of the authorities, concessions to women were more imaginary and forced than the result of an objective assessment of their equal opportunity to serve in the public system.


Author(s):  
Dmitry Shevchenko ◽  
Parmenas Kimani Njoroge

People's IPO is a project that aims at distribution shares of state-owned entities to members of the public. Three Russian state-owned enterprises, VTB, SBERBANK, and ROSNEFT, conducted People's IPO between 2006 and 2007. The aim of these IPOs was to offer the general public an opportunity to own shares in state-owned enterprises. Such an investment opportunity would give ordinary citizens a stake in Russia's biggest state enterprises. Authors investigated the success or otherwise of these IPOs in distributing shares of government enterprises to ordinary citizens and gave recommendations on possible ways of improving public participation in People's IPOs. The aim of this chapter is to propose People's IPO as one of the ways of ensuring proper wealth distribution and eradicating injustice in the financial system. Authors recommend adoption of offer prices that friendly to small investors, creation of credit lines that would avail funds for investing in the IPOs. Companies going public should also adherer to the world's best to ensure growth in shareholders wealth.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 535-535
Author(s):  
Valerie Bunce

The concept of totalitarianism emerged between the two world wars in twentieth-century Europe to become a central concept of Cold War social science designed to highlight similarities between the Nazi and Soviet regimes and implicitly to contrast these forms of dictatorship with liberal democracy. While in the 1960s and 1970s many critics challenged the concept’s Cold War uses as an ideology of “the West,” the idea of totalitarianism and later “post-totalitarianism” played important roles in East Central Europe, where they helped dissident intellectuals, academics, and activists both to understand and to challenge Soviet-style communism. The concept of “totalitarianism” remains heavily contested. But whatever one thinks about the concept’s social scientific validity, there can be no doubt that it played a crucial role in both the scholarship of communism and the public intellectual debates about the possibilities of post-communism. Aviezer Tucker’s The Legacies of Totalitarianism: A Theoretical Framework (Cambridge 2015) addresses many of these issues, and so we have invited a range of political scientists to comment on the book and the broader theme denoted by its title.


Author(s):  
Olga Vasilevna BESKROVNAYA ◽  
Sergey Viktorovich IVANNIKOV ◽  
Sergey Vladimirovich NOVIKOV

The activity of society “Dynamo” in historical and modern aspects in solving the problem of patriotic education of youth as one of the fundamental tasks of the modern Russian state is considered. It is shown that throughout the public organization “Dynamo” history through the active involvement of children to a healthy lifestyle forms the younger generation of an active life position, the desire for physical development, sports achievements for the glory of Russia. The essence of the organization society “Dynamo”, designed along with other tasks to strengthen the physical and spiritual health of Russian citizens of different age groups, using a variety of organizational forms and health-saving technologies is revealed. We show the aspect of coaching work with the younger generation, in which special attention is paid to the patriotic education of young people and teenagers seeking sports achievements. Within the modern structure of the society “Dynamo” the system and quality of sports training in its divisions are analyzed. Traditionally the results are checked in the course of numerous competitions. The importance of Spartakiads and competitions of “Dynamo” society in patriotic education of young people, which encourage the desire for health, strength, beauty, readiness to defend the sports honor of Russia in the athletes, is shown.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 663-676
Author(s):  
Roy Germano

New digital video technologies are transforming how people everywhere document, publish, and consume information. As knowledge production becomes increasingly oriented towards digital/visual modes of expression, scholars will need new approaches for conducting and publishing research. The purpose of this article is to advance a systematic approach to scholarship calledanalytic filmmaking.I argue that when filming and editing are guided by rigorous social scientific standards, digital video can be a compelling medium for illustrating causal processes, communicating theory-driven explanations, and presenting new empirical findings. I furthermore argue that analytic films offer policymakers and the public an effective way to glean insights from and engage with scholarly research. Throughout the article I draw on examples from my work to demonstrate the principles of analytic filmmaking in practice and to point out how analytic films complement written scholarship.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gurpreet Mahajan

Multiculturalism appears to be under siege in Western liberal democracies. The encounter with organised terrorism has placed a question mark against the multicultural wisdom of recognising and accommodating cultural differences in the public arena. As concerns of national security dominate the post-9/11 world, distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are surfacing in a way that has prompted some to say that the present war on terror is actually a war on Islam. Will the multicultural ethic survive in this environment? Will states be willing to accommodate cultural diversity and live with the presence of visible differences? The article explores these questions through the lens of India. India has been battling with terrorism for more than a decade now. While this has severely strained the capacity of the political community to nurture multiculturalism, it has successfully resisted the challenges posed by an assertive cultural/religious majoritarianism that surfaced in the shadow of terrorism. India has dealt with the schisms produced by terrorism by drawing upon the collective imaginary and past cultural legacies that ensued from its understanding of a ‘situated self’. This was supplemented by a functioning democracy in which significant minorities were able to shape the electoral fate of political parties and reduce the political clout of those who were insensitive to their concerns. The multicultural ethic is far from secure in India, yet it does not, and has not, faced the problems that confront multiculturalism in Western Europe today. The issues before European democracies may have been accentuated by terrorism but they are linked closely to the liberal notion of tolerance. Does a notion of the ‘situated self’ that informs tolerance in India offer a viable alternative? We cannot expect any political community to erase its historically defined identity, yet a reflection on other ways of thinking and living may assuage some of our anxieties and open us to the possibility of redefining our understanding of differences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 198-203
Author(s):  
Gennadiy G. Bril’ ◽  
Ekaterina I. Bogdanova

The article examines the process of the origin and development of pawnshop activity in the Russian state in the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods. Special attention is paid to improving the conditions for granting loans to the population secured by property. The authors investigated the normative legal acts regulating the activities of pawnshops. It is noted that the creation of pawnshops was due to the need to rid the population of usurious oppression and the search for new sources of replenishment of the state treasury. The analysis of the sources of legal regulation shows that in the pre-revolutionary period there was a gradual transfer of the work of pawnshops from the public sphere to the private – the organisational and legal forms of pawnshops were improved, the system of control over their activities changed. The chronological framework of the study also includes the Soviet stage of the formation of pawnshop activity, which is poorly studied. After the temporary cessation of pawnshops, the process of its revival began within the framework of a new economic policy in order to improve consumer services for the population. The authors reveal the contribution of pawnshops to the preservation of citizens' property during the Axis-Soviet War. The analysis of the history of pawnshop activity allowed us to conclude about the social role of pawnshops and their importance for maintaining the financial situation of the population, which indicates the need for the development of pawnshop activity at the present stage.


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