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Through the example of a Transcarpathian village, Tiszapéterfalva, the study presents the micro-analysis of post-1945 Soviet political dictatorship. By exploring the social and political conflicts as well as the interactions and tensions between the local society of the village and the state as external power, the study focuses on everyday forms of resistance against dictatorship, such as theft, breaches of work discipline, slowdown, sabotage, workforce migration. Parallel to these, the study examines the corresponding reprisal and corrective procedures, such as disciplinary notices, fines, deducting workdays or remuneration, demotion, which were deployed by rural collectives in order to create, reinforce and consolidate the communist regime in the 1960s and 1970s. The study argues that the adaptation techniques emerging in various fields of social life – especially in the transforming circumstances of property rights, labour organisation, income structure and political situation – and the corresponding corrective procedures together formed a system whereby they mutually controlled one other.
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The party state’s economic and social aims, based on the Marxist–Leninist ideology, significantly affected the definition of the types of behaviours considered insubordinate, the means of sanctions, as well as the operation of the authorities dedicated to enforce them. In the re- and over-politicised atmosphere of universities and colleges (much like that of the rest of society), actions such as asking inappropriate questions, cheating at exams, even simple truancy, were liable to gain unfavourable political charge, which were organised along the easily recognisable labels of current politics and ideology – “reactionary,” “clerical,” “kulak,” “right-wing tendencies” – affixed upon the accused students. The documentation of the disciplinary procedures, however, are informative not only about the zeal to create and expose the enemy, but also about the accused students’ motivation behind their actions.While Hungarian historiography studies the “anti-regime” behaviours (or those labelled as such) of higher education students and responses of the authorities mostly in the context of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, German higher education research assumes a more nuanced and in-depth approach to the same topic. The toolkit developed to instigate regime-friendly behaviour, as well as the forms of repression exerted upon both students and educators are both of central importance in studies of East German higher education history and monographs published on institutional histories. Their approach is largely determined by the methodology and terminology developed through decades of research in the field of East German social resistance (Opposition und Widerstand). While this approach rightly stresses the opportunities for individual action and the limitations of attempts of total social control, it mainly focuses on finding confrontational contacts which means that it is not entirely sufficient for the exploration of the multi-layered relational web between authorities and students in itself. As the present examination of the pre-1956 behaviour of university students does not seek evidence for student resistance, the chosen approach – while utilising the methodological considerations and terminology of opposition research – attempts to synchronise it with the concept of Eigen-Sinn (c. self-will), which has a stronger hermeneutic power in exploring the relationship between individual and authority. The present analysis of the 1955 disciplinary action against the students of the Russian department at the University of Szeged, thus, merges the theoretical and methodological approaches of both opposition research and Alltagsgeschichte.
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Purpose: One of the main questions about the future of print and electronic books is whether the second will replace the first. Although the electronic book was first introduced to the public in 1971, the trend of reading e-books did not gain popularity until the previous decade. The recent introduction of e-book devices has drastically changed the way people access and use the reading content. Therefore, in the present study, the electronic book is examined not only as an innovative technological product, but also as a cultural commodity. More specifically, the present study aims to develop and empirically test a conceptual framework (research model) that sheds fresh light on the factors that affect ebook adoption by the readers. Design/methodology/approach The examination of the proposed conceptual framework was made with the use of a newly-developed structured questionnaire that was distributed to book readers residing in three EU countries. In particular, the participants of the survey were citizens from Austria, France and Greece. The study includes nine research factors. Some of them are dependent (e.g., “perceived usefulness”, “perceived ease of use”, “perceived trust”), while the two main dependent factors of this study are “attitude towards use” and “behavioural intention”. The empirical data were analysed using the “Structural Equation Modelling” (SEM) technique. Findings Empirical results revealed that the factors that have the most significant impact on e-book acceptance, both directly and/or indirectly, are three: “compatibility with the preferred way of reading”, “ease of use” and “attitude towards use”. Also, the results highlighted interesting differences between the three countries of the sample. Research limitations A limitation stemming from the implemented methodology is the use of self-reported scales in order to measure the constructs of the proposed model. Also, the paper lacks a longitudinal approach, since it provides a static picture of e-book acceptance (first quarter of 2019). Originality/value It is of great significance that everyone who has a stake in the adoption of e-books by the readers, understands which factors are the most significant. In that way, the publishing houses, the e-reader manufacturers and the software developers, will be able to approach their consumers more effectively. The present study offers guidelines to these organisations, thus enhancing their understanding about the perceptions of their customers. Moreover, the present study is conducted on a European level (sample from three EU countries), something that has never been attempted before in the relevant literature.
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This article analyses some of the visions regarding urban reconstruction in post-war Romania, taking as a case study the city of Iași. Conceptually, reconstruction has been defined as a set of (often state-coordinated) policies to rebuild the city after the war, as well as project of socialist modernization. While combining the modernist ethos with elements of the Marxist ideology, this project aimed at reconfiguring the urban layout in the new political and economic context, often in a radical form.The necessity of urban modernization measures has been emphasized since the end of the war. The local administration perceived the damaging effects of the bombings as an opportunity to address problems related to the city’s development. However, the immediate post-war plans were built on the idea of a low-rise city. In mid-1950s, plans drawn in Socialist Realist key aimed at creating a monumental city centre around major historical monuments yet ignored the rest of the urban fabric. Finally, the socialist development of Iași during the following decades was envisaged in the 1960s. While challenging previous systematization plans that avoided the plain area around Bahlui because of frequent floods, it was proposed to locate there the industrial area and the first modernist districts. This article analyses, therefore, the evolution of these ideas in professional debates, focusing on the relation between old and new. Particular emphasis is put on the definitions of local specificity, and the way in which broader planning concepts have been contextualized in Iași. Not least, it demonstrates the attachment of local professionals and intellectuals to the city’s history and monuments, showing that alternative design solutions, more considerate towards the specificity of the historic area, have also been proposed.
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The goal of my paper is to analyse the micro-level operation of the Soviet political dictatorship through the example of one of the Transcarpathian settlements. The paper describes the disciplinary (reward) techniques being used by the communist elite in the collective farms (’kolkhozes’) and examines the everyday responses and adaptive strategies of the members of the rural society of this period. The study is based on different archival documents and narrative interviews.The first part of the paper presents some regional features of the change of the elite after 1945, the second part discusses the informal and formal privileges of the new rural elite (farm and factory leaders, leading-edge workers, Stakhanovites) in the context of the local political and economic inequalities.
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During the ’60s the Romanian leadership opposed firmly to any forms of enhancing the collaboration within CMEA through economic integration and specialisation in production as it saw as a danger to national sovereignty. This position changed with the growing economic potential of the country. Especially in the ’80’s the growing need of raw materials and fuel to sustain an oversized industry determined the Romanian leadership to participate in a series of multilateral collaboration programmes within CMEA, the agreement to build joint ventures, and the establishment of direct links between the enterprises from CMEA countries. In the last years, Romanian leadership reviewed its position toward the restructuration of CMEA.
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The political crisis in Poland from 1980 to 1981 ended up with the introduction of martial law and Jaruzelski’s new regime. This political change in Warsaw put both countries closer and seemed to be leading them to a similarly political vision towards the Soviet bloc development, after a period of decline in their bilateral relations. Even though the general’s visit to Romania from June 1982 was researched by Adam Burakowski, our paper continues his work and investigates the Romanian archives to see its perspective about this event. That implies to analyze how the Romanian leadership perceived the visit and its outcome and then to compare with the Polish archives to create a thorough understanding of this subject. For doing that, I will use the Romanian diplomatic correspondence from Warsaw as well as the Romanian Communist Party archives and its official newspaper, The Sparkle – Scînteia.
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Reis Ibrahim effendi Fejić was a man of great intellect, a brave and daring intellectual, a man who unselfishly advocated for public interests, an outstanding scholar of spirituality and tradition in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was a good philologist and polyglot. He was fluent in Arabic, Turkish and Persian, and he also used German. He was also engaged in publishing, working with many religious and state magazines and newspapers. He was a major supporter of reforms in religious and religious-educational life led by Reis-ul-Ulema Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević. During the Second World War he committed himself to the National Liberation Movement, actively participating and bravely raising his voice against the crimes and persecution of innocent people no matter what religion or nation they belonged to. Five members of his family even gave their lives in the fight against fascism and for the liberation of the country. He held the Reis-ul-Ulema position in the period between 1947 and 1957, when he retired having reached a ripe old age. Despite the complex historical circumstances after the Second World War, Reis-ul-Ulema Ibrahim effendi Fejić carried out a series of activities aimed at improving the organisational, infrastructural, educational, cultural and religious circumstances within the Islamic community. With regard to emerging opportunities, marked by the narrowing of religious rights and freedoms, Reis Fejić invested a lot of energy and knowledge to preserve the basic functions of the community. Furthermore, he stood out as a tolerant man in his work, who worked on building good-neighbourly relations with other religious communities and preventing revanchism in the post-war period.
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The protests that affected the student population in 1968 around the world did not go beyond Yugoslavia. The first Belgrade, and then the students of other Yugoslav universities, launched demonstrations and highlighted the demands for more equitable relations in society. Student demonstrations in Yugoslavia that erupted in June 1968, were a series of public demonstrations and strikes and other protest actions that took place at universities in Yugoslavia, with special emphasis on demonstrations of students from the Belgrade University. The year 1968 is a symbol of revolution and historical change in society, and student revolutionary mood, mini-revolution, demonstrations, riots and dissatisfaction spread from the United States to Europe, and from Paris through Prague to Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Sarajevo. Student dissatisfaction was initiated by the inefficiency of the implementation of economic and social reform, and the decline in the standard of living not only of the broader strata of society, which had a negative impact on the student population. During the student mini-revolution, they were trying to gain for their ideals the working class, convincing them in equal interests and the only way to the desired goal, but without success. In this connection, this paper seeks to draw on the basis of the press (Oslobodjenje and Front Freedom) and letters and telegrams addressed to the Union of Students of the Belgrade University to demonstrate that the employees of the company and mine in the Tuzla region reacted to these student demonstrations in Belgrade, then the schools, college students and others. By holding a meeting of working collectives, choirs, then sending letters and telegrams, they condemned the actions of students, but also gave full support to Tito in building a self-managing socialist society.
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Romania’s foreign policy in the last years of the Communist regime was characterized by improvisation, lack of vision and an unnecessary effort to safeguard the personal position of its leader, influenced by the international isolation in which it plunged. The Romanian-Soviet relation was rather not difficult, but it was dominated by disagreements between Nicolae Ceauşescu and Mikhail Gorbachev. The Romanian president showed signs of obvious lack of realism, while the Soviet leader publicly despise his counterpart’s methods
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Purpose of Article. The purpose of the research is to reveal the role and significance of libraries as the social institutions in the Ukrainian society of the Khrushchev “thaw” period (1953 - 1964) on the basis of analysis of the State Archives of the Poltava Region materials. Methodology of the research includes logical, institutional, analytical, problematic, chronological, historical-genetic, and historical-systemic methods, methods of comparison, analogy, synthesis, and analysis. Scientific novelty of the work is a claim that state ideological control limited the activity of libraries as well as formed the appropriate world view and stereotypes of Ukrainians’ critical thinking. At the same time, the weakening of ideological pressure led to the expansion of the accessible information boundaries, contributed to the loosening of the communist system as well as the establishment of new thinking.
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The study reflects on the unrest that broke out on a payday at the Ikarus plant on Christmas 1951. Based on the analysis of this event, the paper presents how the laborers, especially the skilled workers, experienced party ambitions that were increasingly affecting their workplace after the nationalization of the factory, permeating decisions made about manufacturing processes and delimiting their discretion regarding wages – one of the reasons for the tensions emerging on the factory floor. The skilled workers, however, faced more than just the factory's leadership. As the study demonstrates, besides the party-dependent nationalized economic governance, technocratic groups played an independent role in the vehicle industry, specifically in the Ikarus plant. From the beginning, nationalized economic governance necessitated a technocratic layer of society, which had emerged long time before the 1960s. The first professional organizations and the specialized public of the engineering sector were formed as early as the end of 1940s. Based on these, technocrats became independent and self-governing factors in the industry. The study shows that after nationalization some of the entrepreneurial functions in the factory were taken over by the technocratic leadership, which meant that their influence increased compared to the former period of market economy. In order to limit the power of the party in their plant, the technocrats cooperated with the skilled workers who were dissatisfied with their worsening position but were indispensable for the given technological manufacturing processes.
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The purpose of the research. The processes of integration of the post-socialist countries into European cultural space have different speed and rhythm as well as controversial vectors. One of the crucial factors that define the intensity of these processes, is a culture’s maturity in understanding different aspects of the totalitarian past, and also a certain level of development of reflective practices of the political and cultural elite. The artifacts of comedy films show the highest level of concentration of the anti-totalitarian discourse in the culture of post-totalitarian times. They also reveal certain mental differences of the representatives of various post-totalitarian societies. The article aims at making the comparative analysis of the Soviet and Polish comedy films of 1960–1980s. This analysis clearly shows both common and different characteristics of the anti-totalitarian practices of these cultures. The methodology. The phenomenon of laughter is studied with the help of different paradigms of the laughter philosophy, namely, the theories of incongruity, of relief, of superiority etc.; all these theories are seen as mutually complementary. The legacy of G. Daneliya and Bareja is interpreted with the help of the crypto-religious methodology. We also use some methodological practices of M. Bakhtin and representatives of the contemporary Bakhtin studies. The scientific novelty. For the first time ever the material is analyzed in the philosophical and culturological context and in the aspect of the anti-totalitarian discourse. Conclusion. We state and research the comparatively early appearance of the philosophical reflection in the Polish comedy of such a cause of totalitarian practices as the atomization of an individual (H. Arendt); analyze the original semantics of the critical discourse of G. Daneliya’s comedy “33”; reveal the anti-totalitarian subtexts of some other comedies.
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Purpose of Article. The purpose of this work is to determine the correlation between the types of creative activity of Myroslav Skoryk and the specifics of his creative universalism. Methodology. The research‘s methodology includes systematic analysis and comparison of the leading and auxiliary types of creative activity of the artist at different periods of his creative biography. The researcher modeled the picture of the system connections between them. He determined the key events of the creative biography and the characteristic features of creative individuality. Scientific Novelty. The scientific novelty of the research is to construct a model of M. Skoryk‘ s creative activity. It reflects the impulsive, mosaic revealing the creative interests of the artist. 1963‒64, 1966‒67, 1983, the end of the 1980s ‒ the beginning of the 1990s are the milestones of his creative path. The model of M. Skoryk‘s creative activity demonstrates the leading role of the composition, an auxiliary role of pedagogy and social activity, fragmentary manifestations of scientific work and performances during the creative path of the artist. Conclusions. The findings of the study are as follows: 1) the closest interrelationships and interactions there are between the different activities of M. Skoryk; 2) the transition from one to another segment in the model of creative universalism of the artist is carried out by smooth fluctuations-modulations; 3) many of the important events of the creative and biographical scenarios of M. Skoryk formed a motley model of his creative universalism; 4) genre-style palette of creativity of the artist extends in a wide range ‒ from folk to Baroque genres, from jazz to spiritual compositions, etc.; 5) M. Scoryk‘s biographical scenario is realized in the conditions of multi-vector relations between Kyiv and Lviv and contains numerous exits beyond the boundaries of Ukrainian cultural space.
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Szansą na wyjście z zapaści peerelowskiego systemu jest porozumienie z władzą. Przedstawiciele opozycji stają przed dylematem, jaka jest dopuszczalna granica kompromisu. Ryzykują pomimo obawy oszustwa.
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Kazimierz Orłoś, „Powrót wuja Stasia” – rodzinna historia debiutującego pisarza; „Gra Cata” – Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz ustala warunki powrotu z emigracji w 1956 roku – wybór korespondencji i dokumentów źródłowych
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Leszek Fidusiewicz, „Przebieg pokoju” – fotoreportaż ukazujący początki warszawskiego maratonu
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Hubert Maksymilian Sankowski, Andrzej Bober, „Machina cenzury” – kontrola mediów w Peerelu: relacje cenzora i dziennikarza
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The article depicts the creation and functioning of the Szczecin Branch of the CentralPhotographic Agency, with a special emphasis on the workers’ reactions in the times ofpolitical crises, March 1968 and December 1970. The article also presents the photojournalists and their output.
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