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In this fascinating study of unfinished nation-building in Belarus, Grigory Ioffe draws on his two dozen research trips to the country to trace Belarus's history, geography, political situation, society, and economy. The ambivalent relationship between Russia and Belarus results in an identity crisis that is not understood by the West, which leads to Western policies toward Belarus that are based on a fallacy of geopolitical thinking. This book will lead readers to a deeper understanding of Belarus, its relationship with Russia, and its still-forming national identity.
What are the factors of Lukashenka's longevity at the helm of power? This question is addressed in the context of Belarusian history and identity, not as an outcome of a form of government deceitfully imposed on an allegedly benighted people whom better positioned and informed outsiders seek to enlighten and liberate.
Belarus is one of fifteen successor states of the former Soviet Union. It’s the only post-Soviet state that is in full of control of its territory and has no territorial conflicts with its neighbors. It’s squeezed between Russia and the European Union. Belarus had never been an independent nation prior to the Soviet Union’s disintegration and its identity is still evolving. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Belarus contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Belarus.
This volume contains articles on the history of Soviet mathematics, many of which are personal accounts by mathematicians who witnessed and contributed to the turbulent and glorious years of Moscow mathematics. The articles in the book focus on mathematical developments in that era, the personal lives of Russian mathematicians, and political events that shaped the course of scientific work in the Soviet Union. Important contributions include an article about Luzin and his school, based in part on documents that were released only after perestroika, and two articles on Kolmogorov. The volume concludes with annotated bibliographies in English and Russian for further reading. The revised edition is appended by an article of Tikhomirov, which provides an update and general overview of 20th-century Moscow mathematics, and it also includes an Index of Names. This book should appeal to mathematicians, historians, and anyone else interested in Soviet mathematical history.
Historians generally recognise E.A. Preobrazhensky as the most famous Soviet economist of the 1920s. English-language readers know him best as author of The New Economics and co-author (with N.I. Bukharin ) of The ABC of Communism. The documents in this volume, many newly discovered and almost all translated into English for the first time, reveal a Preobrazhensky previously unknown, whose interests ranged far beyond economics to include not only party debates and issues affecting the lives of workers and peasants, but also philosophy, world events, and Russian history, culture and politics. Including moments of triumph and tragedy, they tell an intimate story of political awakening and of commitment to socialist revolution as the path to human dignity.
Russian rural women have been depicted as victims of oppressive patriarchy, celebrated as symbols of inherent female strength, and extolled as the original source of a great world culture. Throughout the years of collectivization, industrialization, and World War II, women played major roles in the evolution of the Russian village. But how do they see themselves? What do their stories, songs, and customs reveal about their values, desires, and motivations? Based upon nearly three decades of fieldwork, from 1983 to 2010, The Worlds of Russian Rural Women follows three generations of Russian women and shows how they alternately preserve, discard, and rework the cultural traditions of their forebears to suit changing needs and self-conceptions. In a major contribution to the study of folklore, Laura J. Olson and Svetlana Adonyeva document the ways that women’s tales of traditional practices associated with marriage, childbirth, and death reflect both upholding and transgression of social norms. Their romance songs, satirical ditties, and healing and harmful magic reveal the complexity of power relations in the Russian villages.
The End of Peasantry? examines the dramatic recent decline of agriculture in post-Soviet Russia. Historically, Russian farmers have encountered difficulties relating to the sheer abundance of land, the vast distances between population centers, and harsh environmental conditions. More recently, the drastic depopulation of rural spaces, decreases in sown acreage, and overall inefficiency of land usage have resulted in the disruption and spatial fragmentation of the countryside. For many decades, rural migration has been a selective process, resulting in the most enterprising and self-motivated people leaving the rural periphery. The new agricultural operators representing nascent but aggressi...
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During the Soviet years, Russian science was touted as one of the greatest successes of the regime. Russian science was considered to be equal, if not superior, to that of the wealthy western nations. The Perversion of Knowledge, a history of Soviet science that focuses on its control by the KGB and the Communist Party, reveals the dark side of this glittering achievement. Based on the author's firsthand experience as a Soviet scientist, and drawing on extensive Russian language sources not easily available to the Western reader, the book includes shocking new information on biomedical experimentation on humans as well as an examination of the pernicious effects of Trofim Lysenko's pseudo-biology. Also included are many poignant case histories of those who collaborated and those who managed to resist, focusing on the moral choices and consequences. The text is accompanied by the author's own translations of key archival materials, making this work an essential resource for all those with a serious interest in Russian history.