DOCSLIB.ORG

Patriotism of Despair a Volume in the Series Culture and Society After Socialism Edited by Bruce Grant and Nancy Ries

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Patriotism of Despair a Volume in the Series Culture and Society After Socialism Edited by Bruce Grant and Nancy Ries The PaTrioTism of DesPair A VOLUME IN THE SERIES Culture and society after socialism edited by Bruce Grant and Nancy Ries A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu The Patriotism of Despair Nation, War, and Loss in Russia serguei alex. oushakine Cornell University Press Ithaca and London Repeated efforts were made to obtain permission to include previously published materials. If acknowledgment has been omitted, rights holders are encouraged to notify the publisher. Copyright © 2009 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2009 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2009 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ushakin, S. (Sergei), 1966– The patriotism of despair : nation, war, and loss in Russia / Serguei Alex. Oushakine. p. cm. — (Culture and society after socialism) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-4679-5 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8014-7557-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Post-communism—Social aspects—Russia (Federation)—Barnaul (Altaiskii krai) 2. Political culture—Russia (Federation)—Barnaul (Altaiskii krai) 3. Patriotism—Russia (Federation)—Barnaul (Altaiskii krai) 4. Social change—Russia (Federation)—Barnaul (Altaiskii krai) 5. Ethnology—Russia (Federation)—Barnaul (Altaiskii krai) 6. Barnaul (Altaiskii krai, Russia)— Civilization. I. Title. II. Series: Culture and society after socialism. DK781.B3.U76 2009 957'.3—dc22 2008049114 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Kim Lane Scheppele Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: “We Have No Motherland” 1 1 Repatriating Capitalism: Fragmented Society and Global Connections 15 2 The Russian Tragedy: From Ethnic Trauma to Ethnic Vitality 79 3 Exchange of Sacrifices: State, Soldiers, and War 130 4 Mothers, Objects, and Relations: Organized by Death 202 Conclusion: “People Cut in Half” 259 References 263 Index 293 Introduction “We Have No Motherland” On December 25th 1991, the headline in Komsomolskaia Pravda, a major Soviet daily newspaper, reflected the nation’s shock at the just-announced dissolution of the USSR: “I woke up, and I am stunned—Soviet power is gone” (Ia prosnulsia—zdras'te! Net sovetskoi vlasti! ). In a week, the system of state-controlled prices in Russia would be gone too, and very soon inflation would reach 2,000 percent per year. Within next few years, the Communist Party would be banned (but legalized later), and many other traditional in- stitutions associated with state socialism would fade away. The collapse of state ideology and the attendant dismantling of the elab- orate system of state domination were a significant part of the story of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But they were not the whole story. Ampli- fied by the corrupt privatization of national assets and a massive transfor- mation of existing norms and conventions, this collapse produced a lasting impact on individual and collective identities, modes of social exchange, and forms of symbolization. Usually framed as a “period of transition,” the 1990s were quickly dubbed by Russians as the time of bespredel, a word that means a lack of any visible obstacles or limits but also an absence of any shared rules or laws. Apart from this institutional dimension, for many ex-Soviets the collapse of the USSR had a more personal meaning, too. For several generations, the Soviet past and personal biographies had become indistinguishable, and the disappearance of the Soviet country often implied the obliteration of individual and collective achievements, shared norms of interaction, estab- lished bonds of belonging, or familiar daily routines. The abandoning of old institutions and the erasing of the most obvious traces of Communist 2 The Patriotism of Despair ideology did not automatically produce an alternative unifying cultural, political, or social framework. As a result, the trope of loss turned out to be the most effective symbolic device, one capable of translating people’s So- viet experience into the post-Soviet context. In the summer of 1992, when I visited Barnaul, the administrative center of the Altai region that became the main field site for this book, I encountered a striking example of these attempts to articulate a new life in terms of absence. Along a main road that runs from downtown to a suburb there was a huge link of a metal pipe, left behind by gas workers some years earlier. A dozen meters long, the pipe was also very high, and local kids used to hide inside it. During that summer, someone used the pipe for a graffiti display. Facing the road, large white- washed letters announced simply: “We have no Motherland” (Nyet u nas Rodiny). I could not tell whether the statement was an ironic comment, an outcry, or a line from a famous Russian poem. Perhaps the sign, addressed to no one in particular and to anyone who passed, combined all of these. This book grew out of those pipe graffiti—as an attempt to under- stand how people in Russia explained their sudden “loss” of motherland, how they reconciled their personal lives with dramatic social and political changes. The project was originally aimed at documenting the local prac- tices through which people tried to restore their feeling of belonging once Soviet power and the Soviet motherland were “gone.” The book traces how Russians in a Siberian province filled up the vacant place left behind by the collapsed socialist order and how they reconfigured, reimagined, and objec- tified their connections with the new nation and the new country. When I returned to Barnaul in 2001 to do fieldwork, the pipe was gone, and the city had also changed. Yet, in contrast to some of the more promi- nent Russian cities, there was no radical erasure of the important cultural objects of the past. No revolutionary memorials had been destroyed, no streets renamed. The main city boulevard, fittingly named after the Bol- shevik leader, is still punctuated by three old statues of Lenin (one every two miles). The Soviet background persisted, or rather, it silently offset the emerging signs and symbols of new post-Soviet reality. In 2003, during my fieldwork, another striking juxtaposition of these two culturally distinct periods caught my eye: a clumsy local billboard in a Barnaul neighborhood invited people to celebrate Independence Day on June 12.1 Its surroundings, however, added an ironic twist. Behind the bill- board an old Soviet building bore a reminder of a very different political 1. The day was introduced in 1994 to mark the Declaration of Sovereignty adopted by the Russian parliament on June 12, 1990. It was the first new official holiday in post-Soviet Russia. Introduction 3 Fig. I.1. “With love to Russia”: a poster for Independence Day with nonfunctioning neon signs celebrating the seventy-third anniversary of the October Revolution in the background. Barnaul, 2003. Photo by author. event. On the roof of the building, nonfunctioning neon combinations of the number 73 and red carnations referred to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 (Figure I.1). Originally erected in 1990 for the last widely celebrated anniversary of the October Revolution, the sign had been neither removed nor replaced, freezing in time and space the power that had been gone for more than a decade. In his study of liminality, Victor Turner reminded us that a temporary suspension of semiotic and discursive activity of the “liminal personae” is one of the typical features of a liminal stage (Turner 1969, 103). Nonfunc- tioning revolutionary signs were indeed an example of this temporarily halted semiotics. Ignored yet not removed, they continued their tacit life as a part of the symbolic landscape. Having lost their primary meaning, these “suspended” signs nonetheless retained their ability to demarcate the line be- tween the present and the past, to remind about a past that had become irretrievable yet not erased. 4 The Patriotism of Despair Despite their implicit and even explicitly nostalgic undertones, these remnants of the disappeared Soviet state were far from being just an indi- cator of a conservative clinging to the totalitarian past or another reflection of “path dependence,” blocking the steady movement toward a bright neo- liberal future. If the post-Soviet period can teach us anything, it is, perhaps, that during times of comprehensive social and political transformation cul- ture matters more than ever. In this book, I show how such traces of loss, the remains of objects and histories that had disappeared, helped sustain con- tinuity in people’s lives during a time of personal or collective transition. By analyzing narratives collected in Barnaul, I identify symbolic anchors— “transitional objects” as Winnicott (1971) called them—that provided the liminal subject with a minimal set of navigation tools in the fragmented and disorienting post-Soviet landscape. With no predictable beginning and no expected end, Russia’s post-Soviet transition came with no clear set of rules or paths to follow. Individual and group liminality of the 1990s coincided with the liminality of the so- ciety at large: communities had to be created, new systems of values had to emerge, and traditions of discursive interactions and social exchange had to be invented.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • After Stalin: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Weeks 1-12) | University of Kent
    10/01/21 After Stalin: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Weeks 1-12) | University of Kent After Stalin: The Decline and Fall of the View Online Soviet Union (Weeks 1-12) 435 items Operation Typhoon: Hitler's march on Moscow, October 1941 - Stahel, David, 2013 Book Introductory Bibliography (12 items) Conscience, dissent and reform in Soviet Russia - Boobbyer, Philip, 2005 Book Soviet communism from reform to collapse - Daniels, Robert V., 1995 Book The rise of Russia and the fall of the Soviet empire - Dunlop, John B., 1995 Book Russia and the idea of the West: Gorbachev, intellectuals, and the end of the Cold War - English, Robert D., 2000 Book Last of the empires: a history of the Soviet Union, 1945-1991 - Keep, John L. H., 1996 Book The Soviet tragedy: a history of socialism in Russia, 1917-1991 - Malia, Martin E., 1994 Book Russia's Cold War: from the October Revolution to the fall of the wall - Haslam, Jonathan, c2011 Book Rulers and victims: the Russians in the Soviet Union - Hosking, Geoffrey A., 2006 Book The shadow of war: Russia and the USSR, 1941 to the present - Lovell, Stephen, 2010 Book Lenin's tomb: the last days of the Soviet Empire - Remnick, David, 1994 Book Twentieth century Russia - Treadgold, Donald W., 1995 Book Zhivago's children: the last Russian intelligentsia - Zubok, V. M., 2009 1/34 10/01/21 After Stalin: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Weeks 1-12) | University of Kent Book Collections of documents (9 items) The Soviet political poster, 1917-1980: From the USSR Lenin Library Collection - Baburina, Nina, 1986 Book The Soviet system: from crisis to collapse - Dallin, Alexander, Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky, 1995 Book A documentary history of communism - Daniels, Robert Vincent, 1985 Book The great patriotic war of the Soviet Union, 1941-45: a documentary reader - Hill, Alexander, 2009 Book Revelations from the Russian archives: documents in English translation - Koenker, Diane, Bachman, Ronald D., Library of Congress, 1997 Book Sedition: everyday resistance in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev - Kozlov, V.
    [Show full text]
  • The Russia You Never Met
    The Russia You Never Met MATT BIVENS AND JONAS BERNSTEIN fter staggering to reelection in summer 1996, President Boris Yeltsin A announced what had long been obvious: that he had a bad heart and needed surgery. Then he disappeared from view, leaving his prime minister, Viktor Cher- nomyrdin, and his chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais, to mind the Kremlin. For the next few months, Russians would tune in the morning news to learn if the presi- dent was still alive. Evenings they would tune in Chubais and Chernomyrdin to hear about a national emergency—no one was paying their taxes. Summer turned to autumn, but as Yeltsin’s by-pass operation approached, strange things began to happen. Chubais and Chernomyrdin suddenly announced the creation of a new body, the Cheka, to help the government collect taxes. In Lenin’s day, the Cheka was the secret police force—the forerunner of the KGB— that, among other things, forcibly wrested food and money from the peasantry and drove some of them into collective farms or concentration camps. Chubais made no apologies, saying that he had chosen such a historically weighted name to communicate the seriousness of the tax emergency.1 Western governments nod- ded their collective heads in solemn agreement. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both confirmed that Russia was experiencing a tax collec- tion emergency and insisted that serious steps be taken.2 Never mind that the Russian government had been granting enormous tax breaks to the politically connected, including billions to Chernomyrdin’s favorite, Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly,3 and around $1 billion to Chubais’s favorite, Uneximbank,4 never mind the horrendous corruption that had been bleeding the treasury dry for years, or the nihilistic and pointless (and expensive) destruction of Chechnya.
    [Show full text]
  • Helsinki Watch Committees in the Soviet Republics: Implications For
    FINAL REPORT T O NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H TITLE : HELSINKI WATCH COMMITTEES IN THE SOVIET REPUBLICS : IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SOVIET NATIONALITY QUESTIO N AUTHORS : Yaroslav Bilinsky Tönu Parming CONTRACTOR : University of Delawar e PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS : Yaroslav Bilinsky, Project Director an d Co-Principal Investigato r Tönu Parming, Co-Principal Investigato r COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER : 621- 9 The work leading to this report was supported in whole or in part fro m funds provided by the National Council for Soviet and East European Research . NOTICE OF INTENTION TO APPLY FOR COPYRIGH T This work has been requested for manuscrip t review for publication . It is not to be quote d without express written permission by the authors , who hereby reserve all the rights herein . Th e contractual exception to this is as follows : The [US] Government will have th e right to publish or release Fina l Reports, but only in same forma t in which such Final Reports ar e delivered to it by the Council . Th e Government will not have the righ t to authorize others to publish suc h Final Reports without the consent o f the authors, and the individua l researchers will have the right t o apply for and obtain copyright o n any work products which may b e derived from work funded by th e Council under this Contract . ii EXEC 1 Overall Executive Summary HELSINKI WATCH COMMITTEES IN THE SOVIET REPUBLICS : IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SOVIET NATIONALITY QUESTION by Yaroslav Bilinsky, University of Delawar e d Tönu Parming, University of Marylan August 1, 1975, after more than two years of intensive negotiations, 35 Head s of Governments--President Ford of the United States, Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada , Secretary-General Brezhnev of the USSR, and the Chief Executives of 32 othe r European States--signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperatio n in Europe (CSCE) .
    [Show full text]
  • Russia's 2020 Strategic Economic Goals and the Role of International
    Russia’s 2020 Strategic Economic Goals and the Role of International Integration 1800 K Street NW | Washington, DC 20006 Tel: (202) 887-0200 | Fax: (202) 775-3199 E-mail: [email protected] | Web: www.csis.org authors Andrew C. Kuchins Amy Beavin Anna Bryndza project codirectors Andrew C. Kuchins Thomas Gomart july 2008 europe, russia, and the united states ISBN 978-0-89206-547-9 finding a new balance Ë|xHSKITCy065479zv*:+:!:+:! CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & CSIS INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Russia’s 2020 Strategic Economic Goals and the Role of International Integration authors Andrew C. Kuchins Amy Beavin Anna Bryndza project codirectors Andrew C. Kuchins Thomas Gomart july 2008 About CSIS In an era of ever-changing global opportunities and challenges, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) provides strategic insights and practical policy solutions to decisionmakers. CSIS conducts research and analysis and develops policy initiatives that look into the future and anticipate change. Founded by David M. Abshire and Admiral Arleigh Burke at the height of the Cold War, CSIS was dedicated to the simple but urgent goal of finding ways for America to survive as a nation and prosper as a people. Since 1962, CSIS has grown to become one of the world’s preeminent public policy institutions. Today, CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. More than 220 full- time staff and a large network of affiliated scholars focus their expertise on defense and security; on the world’s regions and the unique challenges inherent to them; and on the issues that know no boundary in an increasingly connected world.
    [Show full text]
  • Russia: CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 to FEBRUARY 1995
    Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... Français Home Contact Us Help Search canada.gc.ca Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets Home Issue Paper RUSSIA CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 TO FEBRUARY 1995 July 1995 Disclaimer This document was prepared by the Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada on the basis of publicly available information, analysis and comment. All sources are cited. This document is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed or conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. For further information on current developments, please contact the Research Directorate. Table of Contents GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures Political Leaders 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CHRONOLOGY 1993 1994 1995 3. APPENDICES TABLE 1: SEAT DISTRIBUTION IN THE STATE DUMA TABLE 2: REPUBLICS AND REGIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION MAP 1: RUSSIA 1 of 58 9/17/2013 9:13 AM Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... MAP 2: THE NORTH CAUCASUS NOTES ON SELECTED SOURCES REFERENCES GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures [This glossary is included for easy reference to organizations which either appear more than once in the text of the chronology or which are known to have been formed in the period covered by the chronology. The list is not exhaustive.] All-Russia Democratic Alternative Party. Established in February 1995 by Grigorii Yavlinsky.( OMRI 15 Feb.
    [Show full text]
  • United Nations/Russian Federation Workshop on the Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems
    United Nations/Russian Federation Workshop on the Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems Organized jointly by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) Co-organized by the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems Hosted by the Reshetven Information Satellite Systems (ISS) Joint Stock Company Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation 18 - 22 May 2015 1. Venue of the Workshop The Workshop will be held at: Hotel Siberia International Exhibition Business Centre (IEBC) Address: Aviatorov Street 19, 660077 Business Centre Krasnoyarsk, Russia Telephone: +391 298 90 50 Fax: +391 298 90 51 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.centersiberia.ru/ 2. Local Organizing Committee in Krasnoyarsk The Workshop is hosted by the Reshetnev ISS Joint Stock Company in Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation. The contact person is Mr. Vassili ZVONAR, Head of Department Navigation & Geodesy, Space Systems and Satellites Design. Address: 52 Lenin St. Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsky Region, 662972, Russia Tel.: +(3919)76 42 99 Fax: +(3919)75 61 46 / 75 20 32 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.iss-reshetnev.com Page 1 of 4 3. Arriving to Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo international airport is the main airport of the city of Krasnoyarsk. The airport is located 27 kilometers west of the city, and 10 kilometers from the federal highway М-53. Information about the airport could be found at http://www.yemelyanovo.ru/en/. Workshop participants will be met at the airport by a representative of the Local Organizing Committe. All participants will be provided a shuttle service from the airport to Hotel IEBC.
    [Show full text]
  • An Interdisciplinary Survey of South Siberia
    Alexis Schrubbe REEES Upper Division Undergraduate Course Mock Syllabus Change and Continuity: An Interdisciplinary Survey of South Siberia This is a 15 week interdisciplinary course surveying the peoples of South-Central Siberia. The parameters of this course will be limited to a specific geographic area within a large region of the Russian Federation. This area is East of Novosibirsk but West of Ulan-Ude, North of the Mongolian Border (Northwest of the Altai Range) and South of the greater Lake-Baikal Region. This course will not cover the Far East nor the Polar North. This course will be a political, historical, religious, and anthropological exploration of the vast cultural landscape within the South-Central Siberian area. The course will have an introductory period consisting of a brief geographical overview, and an historical short-course. The short-course will cover Steppe history and periodized Russian history. The second section of the course will overview indigenous groups located within this region limited to the following groups: Tuvan, Buryat, Altai, Hakass/Khakass, Shor, Soyot. The third section will cover the first Russian explorers/fur trappers, the Cossacks, the Old Believers, the Decembrists, and waves of exiled people to the region. Lastly, the final section will discuss contemporary issues facing the area. The objective of the course is to provide a student with the ability to demonstrate an understanding of the complex chronology of human presence and effect in South-Central Siberia. The class will foster the ability to analyze, summarize, and identify waves of influence upon the area. The overarching goal of the course is to consider the themes of “change” versus “continuity” in regard to inhabitants of South Siberia.
    [Show full text]
  • Events and Land Reform in Russia
    3 TITLE: EVENKS AND LAND REFORM IN RUSSIA: PROGRESS AND OBSTACLES AUTHOR: GAIL FONDAHL University of Northern British Columbia THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARCH TITLE VIII PROGRAM 1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 PROJECT INFORMATION:1 CONTRACTOR: Dartmouth College PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Gail Fondahl COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER: 808-28 DATE: March 1, 1996 COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Individual researchers retain the copyright on work products derived from research funded by Council Contract. The Council and the U.S. Government have the right to duplicate written reports and other materials submitted under Council Contract and to distribute such copies within the Council and U.S. Government for their own use, and to draw upon such reports and materials for their own studies; but the Council and U.S. Government do not have the right to distribute, or make such reports and materials available, outside the Council or U.S. Government without the written consent of the authors, except as may be required under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 5 U.S.C. 552, or other applicable law. 1 The work leading to this report was supported in part by contract funds provided by the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, made available by the U. S. Department of State under Title VIII (the Soviet-Eastern European Research and Training Act of 1983, as amended). The analysis and interpretations contained in the report are those of the author(s). EVENKS AND LAND REFORM IN RUSSIA: PROGRESS AND OBSTACLES Gail Fondahl1 The Evenks are one of most populous indigenous peoples of Siberia (with 30,247 individuals, according to a 1989 census), inhabiting an area stretching from west of the Yenisey River to the Okhotsk seaboard and Sakhalin Island, and from the edge of the tundra south to China and Mongolia.
    [Show full text]
  • Covering Conflict – Reporting on Conflicts in the North Caucasus in the Russian Media – ARTICLE 19, London, 2008 – Index Number: EUROPE/2008/05
    CO VERIN G CO N FLICT Reporting on Conflicts in the N orth Caucasus in the Russian M edia N M AY 2008 ARTICLE 19, 6-8 Am w ell Street, London EC1R 1U Q , U nited Kingdom Tel +44 20 7278 9292 · Fax +44 20 7278 7660 · info@ article19.org · http://w w w .article19.org ARTICLE 19 GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR FREE EXPRESSION Covering Conflict – Reporting on Conflicts in the North Caucasus in the Russian Media – ARTICLE 19, London, 2008 – Index Number: EUROPE/2008/05 i ARTICLE 19 GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR FREE EXPRESSION Covering Conflict Reporting on Conflicts in the North Caucasus in the Russian Media May 2008 © ARTICLE 19 ISBN 978-1-906586-01-0 Covering Conflict – Reporting on Conflicts in the North Caucasus in the Russian Media – ARTICLE 19, London, 2008 – Index Number: EUROPE/2008/05 i i ARTICLE 19 GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR FREE EXPRESSION Covering Conflict – Reporting on Conflicts in the North Caucasus in the Russian Media – ARTICLE 19, London, 2008 – Index Number: EUROPE/2008/05 ii i ARTICLE 19 GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR FREE EXPRESSION A CKN O W LED G EM EN TS This report was researched and written by the Europe Programme of ARTICLE 19. Chapter 6, on ‘International Standards of Freedom of Expression and Conflict Reporting’ was written by Toby Mendel, Director of ARTICLE 19’s Law Programme. Chapter 5, ‘Reporting Conflict: Media Monitoring Results’ was compiled by Natalia Mirimanova, independent conflict resolution and media consultant. The analysis of media monitoring data was carried out by Natalia Mirimanova and Luitgard Hammerer, (formerly) ARTICLE 19 Regional Representative - Europe, CIS.
    [Show full text]
  • The Property Rights to Be Reformed
    Chapter 2 The Property Rights to Be Reformed ‘‘Reform’’ makes sense only if there is a problem. Indeed, a problem did exist, and to understand it, it is important to examine the characteristics of ‘‘open fields,’’ repartition, and family tenure and to explore some of the theories of their origins. If these reflected some almost unchangeable attribute of the Russian character, then remedies such as Stolypin’s would have been naı¨ve; but the character explanation seems most unlikely. The next step is, then, to look at how these practices were likely to have inflicted serious productivity losses, and to ask why, if these losses were substantial, the peasants didn’t cure them through voluntary transactions among themselves or between individual peasants and their communes. Finally, this chapter explores some more general questions about peasants’ habits of mind, solidarity, and outlook on some of the key attributes of modernity such as law and property. Open fields ‘‘Open fields’’ mixed individual and collective ownership; while indi- vidual households owned tracts, many operations were collectively ................. 15954$ $CH2 10-09-06 08:53:25 PS PAGE 31 32 Liberal Reform in an Illiberal Regime controlled.1 In addition, each household possessed multiple, widely scattered plots. Although the two features—plot scattering and the mixture of individual and collective control—were conceptually in- dependent, they seem to have generally existed together. In mixing collective and individual control, open fields enabled farmers to use the same land for activities that were best conducted on different scales. Animals grazed over large tracts, reducing the costs of fencing and of keeping an eye on the animals.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Features of the Sedentary Constructions of Zunghars and Defensive Sistem
    JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 08, 2020 ON THE FEATURES OF THE SEDENTARY CONSTRUCTIONS OF ZUNGHARS AND DEFENSIVE SISTEM Dordzhi G. Kukeev1, Nina V. Shorvaeva2 1 Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Kalmyk State university named after B.B. Gorodovikov, 358000, Pushkin Street, 11. Elista, Russia. 2Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Kalmyk State university named after B.B. Gorodovikov, 358000, Pushkin Street, 11. Elista, Russia. E-mail:1 [email protected] Received: 11.03.2020 Revised: 12.04.2020 Accepted: 28.05.2020 ABSTRACT: Because of the importance of studying the history of relations of the Qing dynasty with the peoples of Central Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the existence of the phenomenon referred to as the “Zunghar heritage”, it is appropriate to study its background in the defensive systems of Zunghar and Qing Empires in Central Asia. There is a recent tendency to mention the so-called “Zunghar legacy” in the works of modern historiography on the history of Central Eurasia. It means like as a combination of political traditions, administrative and economic activities and methods of contacts, which were adopted by the Qing authorities from the Oirats. The researchers, actively using Manchu sources, explain the nature of the using of this “legacy” by the Qing through the model of “North Asian policy”, the “Qing world order” or the “Central Eurasian tradition”. In this regard and according to the logic, a comparative method and an attempt to make clear the genesis of a phenomenon, which had related to the Qing-Oirat relations before the contact of the Qing with Central Asia, west of Xinjiang, should also cause some interest in Qing and Central Asian studies, especially in the area of sedentary constructions of Zunghars and defensive system, named “Karul” or “Karun”.
    [Show full text]
  • Dramatic Expansion of the Range of the Invasive Ash Pest, Buprestid Beetle Agrilus Planipennis Fairmaire, 1888 (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) in European Russia M
    ISSN 0013-8738, Entomological Review, 2013, Vol. 93, No. 9, pp. 1121–1128. © Pleiades Publishing, Inc., 2013. Original Russian Text © M.Ja. Orlova-Bienkowskaja, 2013, published in Entomologicheskoe Obozrenie, 2013, Vol. 92, No. 4, pp. 710–715. Dramatic Expansion of the Range of the Invasive Ash Pest, Buprestid Beetle Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, 1888 (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) in European Russia M. Ja. Orlova-Bienkowskaja A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Moscow, Russia email: [email protected] Received June 23, 2013 Abstract—The emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, 1888) is a dangerous invasive pest of ashes. It was previously believed that in European Russia it occurs only in Moscow, Moscow Province, and in the eastern regions of Smolensk Province. An examination of ash trees in 12 cities of European Russia has revealed a much wider area of the emerald ash borer invasion. The pest was found in Konakovo (Tver Province), Tula, Kaluga, Orel, and Voronezh. We have found that A. planipennis damages not only Fraxinus pennsylvanica (an American species which is commonly planted in cities), but also the aborigine European ash Fraxinus excelsior. Ashes in the European forests and in the protective forest belts are badly endangered. DOI: 10.1134/S0013873813090042 The emerald ash borer Agrilus planipennis Fair- The first foci of A. planipennis in Europe were maire, 1888 is the most dangerous trunk pest of ash- found 10 years ago in Moscow (Izhevskii, 2007; trees. Invasion of this Asian beetle into North America Volkovitsh, 2007; Mozolevskaya, 2007; Shankhiza, has led to killing tens of millions trees (Emerald Ash 2007).
    [Show full text]