The Soviet Union Under Stalin
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Ar Thur Koestler and Mysticism
AR THUR KOESTLER AND MYSTICISM by NILS BJORN KVASTAD ARTHUR Koestler was an influential writer during the first years after the war. His attacks on communism got a world-wide echo, in particular among intellectuals. To the reading public he was in the first place a political writer. But according to himself the political content is only one aspect of his literary production from his first years as an author. As important were some mystical experiences he had while sitting in one of Franco's prisons awaiting execution during the Spanish Civil War. These experiences had for him certain ethical impli cations, and an important theme in his first books was the contrast between the ethics derived from his mystical experiences on the one hand and Marxist-Leninist ethics as well as the ethical implications of Freudian psychoanalysis on the other. In his autobiography Koest ler writes about how his first books were influenced by his mysti cal experiences, or the 'hours by the window' as he called them: 'In the years that followed I wrote a number of books in which I at tempted to assimilate the (mystical) experiences of cell no. 40. Ethical problems had hitherto played no part in my writing, now they became its central concern. In 'The Gladiators', ( ...), and 'Darkness at Noon', ( .•. ), I tried to come to intellectual terms wi th the in tuiti ve glimp ses gained durin g the 'hours by th e win dow'. Both novels were variations on the same theme: the problem of Ends and Means, the conflict between transcendental morality and social expediency. -
History Is Made in the Dark 4: Alexander Nevsky: the Prince, the Filmmaker and the Dictator
1 History Is Made in the Dark 4: Alexander Nevsky: The Prince, the Filmmaker and the Dictator In May 1937, Sergei Eisenstein was offered the opportunity to make a feature film on one of two figures from Russian history, the folk hero Ivan Susanin (d. 1613) or the mediaeval ruler Alexander Nevsky (1220-1263). He opted for Nevsky. Permission for Eisenstein to proceed with the new project ultimately came from within the Kremlin, with the support of Joseph Stalin himself. The Soviet dictator was something of a cinephile, and he often intervened in Soviet film affairs. This high-level authorisation meant that the USSR’s most renowned filmmaker would have the opportunity to complete his first feature in some eight years, if he could get it through Stalinist Russia’s censorship apparatus. For his part, Eisenstein was prepared to retreat into history for his newest film topic. Movies on contemporary affairs often fell victim to Soviet censors, as Eisenstein had learned all too well a few months earlier when his collectivisation film, Bezhin Meadow (1937), was banned. But because relatively little was known about Nevsky’s life, Eisenstein told a colleague: “Nobody can 1 2 find fault with me. Whatever I do, the historians and the so-called ‘consultants’ [i.e. censors] won’t be able to argue with me”.i What was known about Alexander Nevsky was a mixture of history and legend, but the historical memory that was most relevant to the modern situation was Alexander’s legacy as a diplomat and military leader, defending a key western sector of mediaeval Russia from foreign foes. -
Lost in Back-Translation
24 The German Times October 2018 ARTS & LIFE Lost in back-translation The rediscovered original manuscript of Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon allows for a new interpretation of a literary and political classic Rubashov, who is arrested and The book does not reveal the be resold for up to eight times works were all translated from one of the interrogation scenes, BY LUTZ LICHTENBERGER soon thereafter imprisoned. In country in which it is set. At the retail price. By mid-year, the the English. Scammell notes that Rubashov scoffs that “our lead- captivity he is interrogated to several points in the novel there novel had sold 300,000 copies, German-speaking readers would ership [is] more grotesque than t’s the political novel of the excruciating effect by two exam- are indications it may be Nazi and after two years, two million. have regarded the novel as “testi- that jumping jack’s with the little day, a warning signal, a reck- ining magistrates, Ivanov, an erst- Germany, or perhaps communist With the escalation of the Cold mony of a foreign culture.” This, mustache” – a direct reference to Ioning with all forms of totali- while friend and fellow traveler, Soviet Union. Scammel writes War, however, Koestler’s anti- perhaps, encouraged many of Hitler. However, the phrase in tarianism, a riveting literary dys- and Gletkin, a hostile and ruth- that early on, more astute critics totalitarian – indeed universal – them to overlook the passages Daphne Hardy’s original transla- topia. As a matter of fact, Dark- less inquisitor. The two officials called attention to the generally message passed nearly unnoticed. -
Title of Thesis: ABSTRACT CLASSIFYING BIAS
ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis Directed By: Dr. David Zajic, Ph.D. Our project extends previous algorithmic approaches to finding bias in large text corpora. We used multilingual topic modeling to examine language-specific bias in the English, Spanish, and Russian versions of Wikipedia. In particular, we placed Spanish articles discussing the Cold War on a Russian-English viewpoint spectrum based on similarity in topic distribution. We then crowdsourced human annotations of Spanish Wikipedia articles for comparison to the topic model. Our hypothesis was that human annotators and topic modeling algorithms would provide correlated results for bias. However, that was not the case. Our annotators indicated that humans were more perceptive of sentiment in article text than topic distribution, which suggests that our classifier provides a different perspective on a text’s bias. CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Gemstone Honors Program, University of Maryland, 2018 Advisory Committee: Dr. David Zajic, Chair Dr. Brian Butler Dr. Marine Carpuat Dr. Melanie Kill Dr. Philip Resnik Mr. Ed Summers © Copyright by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang 2018 Acknowledgements We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to our mentor, Dr. -
378-01 Jones
Spring 2017 History 378-01 (IGS) 2:00-3:15 TR MHRA 1214 Russian History Since 1900 (www.uncg.edu/~jwjones/russia) Instructor: Jeff Jones [email protected] Office: 2139 MHRA Phone: 334-4068 Office Hours: M 10:00-11; T 10-10:50; W 2:00-3:15 and by appointment Course Description This introductory history course, which carries an International and Global Studies (IGS) marker, examines Russian and Soviet history in the 20th century in two parts. Part I: “From Traditional Russia to the Civil War” looks at traditional Russian society and culture; developments in the late 19th century; and the upheavals in Russian society from the late tsarist period through World War I, the revolutions of 1917, and the civil war. Part II: “From the Rise of Joseph Stalin to post-Soviet Russia” emphasizes the impact of the Stalin Revolution, the purges, and WWII; the reformist course of de-Stalinization pursued by Nikita Khrushchev; neo-Stalinism under Leonid Brezhnev; the Soviet-Afghan War and Mikhail Gorbachev’s dramatic reforms in the 1980s; and the collapse of the USSR and post-Soviet Russia with an emphasis on the conflict in Chechnya. The course explores several themes: Russia’s relationship with the West; revolution and the role of the individual in history; the role of gender and class in Russian and Soviet society; and the role of ideology and socialism in theory and practice. Student Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to … Use a historical approach to analyze and contextualize primary and secondary sources representing divergent perspectives. -
Russian Museums Visit More Than 80 Million Visitors, 1/3 of Who Are Visitors Under 18
Moscow 4 There are more than 3000 museums (and about 72 000 museum workers) in Russian Moscow region 92 Federation, not including school and company museums. Every year Russian museums visit more than 80 million visitors, 1/3 of who are visitors under 18 There are about 650 individual and institutional members in ICOM Russia. During two last St. Petersburg 117 years ICOM Russia membership was rapidly increasing more than 20% (or about 100 new members) a year Northwestern region 160 You will find the information aboutICOM Russia members in this book. All members (individual and institutional) are divided in two big groups – Museums which are institutional members of ICOM or are represented by individual members and Organizations. All the museums in this book are distributed by regional principle. Organizations are structured in profile groups Central region 192 Volga river region 224 Many thanks to all the museums who offered their help and assistance in the making of this collection South of Russia 258 Special thanks to Urals 270 Museum creation and consulting Culture heritage security in Russia with 3M(tm)Novec(tm)1230 Siberia and Far East 284 © ICOM Russia, 2012 Organizations 322 © K. Novokhatko, A. Gnedovsky, N. Kazantseva, O. Guzewska – compiling, translation, editing, 2012 [email protected] www.icom.org.ru © Leo Tolstoy museum-estate “Yasnaya Polyana”, design, 2012 Moscow MOSCOW A. N. SCRiAbiN MEMORiAl Capital of Russia. Major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation center of Russia and the continent MUSEUM Highlights: First reference to Moscow dates from 1147 when Moscow was already a pretty big town. -
HE CONTRIBUTION of GEORGE ORWELL and ARTHUR KOESTLER to the POLIT- ICAL THEORY of TOTALITARIANISM ~Oland James Wensley
~HE CONTRIBUTION OF GEORGE ORWELL AND ARTHUR KOESTLER TO THE POLIT ICAL THEORY OF TOTALITARIANISM ~oland James Wensley ·A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts , Department of Economies and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal. August, 1964. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE i-v CHAPTER I: The Men and the Age 1-18 Situation in the 1930's Pl-2; Koestler's personal background P3-6; Koestler's background related to his thought P6-10; Orwell's personal background Pl0-12; Orwell's background related to his thought Pl2-16; Koestler and Orwell compared in general terms Pl7-18. CHAPTER II: Spain 1937 - The Impact of Totalita rianism on Koestler and Orwell 19-34 Situation in Spain 1936-37, Pl9-20; Koestler's Spanish experience P21-26J Orwell's Spanish experience P26-30; meaning of the Spanish experience for Koestler and Orwell as defined in terms of ''li.m.ited '' and "luxuriant r• totalita rianism P31-34. CHAPTER III: Arthur Koestler and Limited Totalita rianism 35-61 Koestler's view of man and society P35-38J Koestler's idea of the genesis of totalitarianism P39-41; attraction of Communism for Koestler P41-43; Koestler's conception of Stalinism P44-48; Koestler's theory of history P47-48; Koestler's idea of totalita rianism P48-56; the meaning of '' limi ted '' totalitarianism in Koestler's work ex pounded P56-61. CHAPTER IV: George Orwell and Luxuriant Totalita rianism 62-83 Orwell's view of man and society P62-64; Orwell's ideas compared with Koestler's on this P65-69; Orwell's extension of the anomalies of the modern age P69-73; Orwell on totalitarian stability1 distortion of reality, and the in vasion of the human personality P73-80; Orwell's conception of luxuriant totalitarianism P80-83. -
Raisa Gorbacheva, the Soviet Union’S Only First Lady
Outraging the People by Stepping out of the Shadows Gender roles, the ‘feminine ideal’ and gender discourse in the Soviet Union and Raisa Gorbacheva, the Soviet Union’s only First Lady. Noraly Terbijhe Master Thesis MA Russian & Eurasian Studies Leiden University January 2020, Leiden Everywhere in the civilised world, the position, the rights and obligations of a wife of the head of state are more or less determined. For instance, I found out that the President’s wife in the White House has special staff to assist her in preforming her duties. She even has her own ‘territory’ and office in one wing of the White House. As it turns out, I as the First Lady had only one tradition to be proud of, the lack of any right to an official public existence.1 Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva (1991) 1 Translated into English from Russian. From: Raisa Gorbacheva, Ya Nadeyus’ (Moscow 1991) 162. 1 Table of contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Literature review ........................................................................................................................... 9 3. Gender roles and discourse in Russia and the USSR ................................................................. 17 The supportive comrade ................................................................................................................. 19 The hardworking mother ............................................................................................................... -
Exploration of Narrative Devices in Documentary Propaganda Across Different
Exploration of Narrative Devices in Documentary Propaganda Across Different Media Platforms Comparative Analysis of the USSR in the 1920s and Russia in the 2010s Kirill Chernyshov A Research Paper Submitted to the University of Dublin, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Interactive Digital Media 2018 Declaration I have read and I understand the plagiarism provisions in the General Regulations of the University Calendar for the current year, found at: http://tcd.ie/calendar I have also completed the Online Tutorial on avoiding plagiarism ‘Ready, Steady, Write’, located at http://tcd-ie.libguides.com/plagiarism/ready-steady-write I declare that the work described in this Research Paper is, except where other stat- ed, entirely my own work and has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other University. Signed: Kirill Chernyshov Date: Permission to Lend and/or Copy I agree that Trinity College Library may lend or copy this research paper upon request. Signed: Kirill Chernyshov Date: Acknowledgements To my family and friends in different parts of the world for their support while being so far away. To my new friends here, flatmates, and classmates, for being there and making this experience so exciting. To Vivienne, my supervisor, for the fantastic lectures, positive spirit, and valuable guidance throughout the year. Summary In this research paper, two periods in Russian and Soviet history are compared in or- der to identify the differences in narrative devices used in the 1920s and 2010s. These two cases were chosen to analyse due to, apart from the fact that today’s Russia is a comparatively young direct successor of the USSR, that predictably causes some similarities in the people’s identity and values, there are some similarities in historical and political context of these two periods that were revealed in this paper. -
Olga Muller Cooke E-Mail: [email protected] Dept
Olga Muller Cooke e-mail: [email protected] Dept. of International Studies 3201 Westchester Ave. Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77845 College Station, Texas 77843-4238 979-693-3704 (home) FAX: 409-845-0823 979-845-2124 (office) CURRICULUM VITAE - January 2015 Education: Ph.D., School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University of London, 1982 M.A., Slavic Languages and Literatures, UC-Berkeley, 1974 B.A., Russian and French, Rutgers University, 1972 Employment History: Associate Professor of Russian, Texas A&M University, 1992-present, Visiting Associate Professor of Russian, Rice University, 2001-2002, Assistant Professor of Russian, Texas A&M University, 1986-1992, Visiting Lecturer in Russian, University of California, Irvine, 1985-86, Visiting Lecturer in Russian, University of California at Riverside, 1981-1985; Teaching Associate in Russian, UC-Berkeley, 1976-1978. Teaching Experience at Texas A&M University: First, second and third year Russian, Russian conversation, Russian culture, Russia's artistic heritage, the 20th century Russian novel, the Russian short story, Russian drama, Russian poetry, women in Russian culture, masterpieces of Russian prose, émigré culture, propaganda & dissidence in film, the European avant-garde, the Gulag in Russian literature, first-year freshman seminar, urbanism and modernism. Academic Fellowships and Grants: 2015 PESCA Research Award-- ‘Small Seeds of Culture in Solovki:’ Theater in Russia’s First Concentration Camp – (funded Jan 2015 for $10,000) Glasscock Center for Humanities -
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS in the SOVIET UNION: a COMPARATIVE APPROACH * T~Omas E
1967] FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS IN THE SOVIET UNION: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH * T~omAs E. TowE t INTRODUCTION The Soviet Constitution guarantees many of the same funda- mental rights as are guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States, plus several others as well. Indeed, these rights are described in greater detail and appear on their face to be safeguarded more emphatically in the Soviet Constitution. However, the mere existence of constitutional provisions for fundamental rights does not necessarily guarantee that those rights will be protected. Western scholars often point to discrepancies between rhetorical phrases in the Soviet Con- stitution and actual practices in the area of fundamental rights.' Soviet legal scholars insist, however, that such criticism should be aimed instead at Western constitutions. Andrei Vyshinsky has stated that it is precisely in the area of fundamental rights that "the contra- dictions between reality and the rights proclaimed by the bourgeois constitutions [are] particularly sharp." 2 Soviet legal scholars claim that bourgeois laws are replete with reservations and loopholes which largely negate their effectiveness in protecting fundamental rights generally, and those of the working man in particular.3 There is undoubtedly some truth in both claims, for, as Professor Berman has stated, "The striking fact is that in the protection of human rights, the Soviet system is strong where ours is weak, just as it is weak where ours is strong." 4 The full impact of this statement can only be understood by comparing the different approaches which * The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of Dr. Branko M. -
Soviet Censorship Policy from a Musician's Perspective
The View from an Open Window: Soviet Censorship Policy from a Musician’s Perspective By Danica Wong David Brodbeck, Ph.D. Departments of Music and European Studies Jayne Lewis, Ph.D. Department of English A Thesis Submitted in Partial Completion of the Certification Requirements for the Honors Program of the School of Humanities University of California, Irvine 24 May 2019 i Table of Contents Acknowledgments ii Abstract iii Introduction 1 The Music of Dmitri Shostakovich 9 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District 10 The Fifth Symphony 17 The Music of Sergei Prokofiev 23 Alexander Nevsky 24 Zdravitsa 30 Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and The Crisis of 1948 35 Vano Muradeli and The Great Fellowship 35 The Zhdanov Affair 38 Conclusion 41 Bibliography 44 ii Acknowledgements While this world has been marked across time by the silenced and the silencers, there have always been and continue to be the supporters who work to help others achieve their dreams and communicate what they believe to be vital in their own lives. I am fortunate enough have a background and live in a place where my voice can be heard without much opposition, but this thesis could not have been completed without the immeasurable support I received from a variety of individuals and groups. First, I must extend my utmost gratitude to my primary advisor, Dr. David Brodbeck. I did not think that I would be able to find a humanities faculty member so in tune with both history and music, but to my great surprise and delight, I found the perfect advisor for my project.