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he present contribution focuses on the presence of Gulag argot in Julija Nikolaevna Voznesenskaja’s The Women’s Decameron, more specifically on the short stories told by Zina, the former Lager prisoner by means of linguistic analysis and the recently published Dictionary of Russian Slang Expressions: The Lexicon of Penal Servitude and Camps in Imperial and Soviet Russia by Leonid Gorodin. The following study aims to describe the aforementioned stylistic strategy from The Women’s Decameron as a form of skaz, but also to underline how language works in this context as lieu de mémoire. It is possible to define the Gulag argot as a site of memory, especially when considering the recent study and exhibition by the Gulag Museum in Moscow, named The Language of Unfreedom. This exhibition called attention to the extent in which the lexicon of Gulags has become part of everyday language, its violent heritage ignored, and this original violence underplayed. The work of the Gulag Museum in Moscow underlines the important role of language in preserving history. The memory of Gulag camps is also a recurring theme in Julija Voznesenskaja’s literary and journalistic work; therefore, the usage of Gulag argot cannot be interpreted only as a literary motif, but also as a way to preserve the tragic memory of concentration camps.
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In submitted contribution there are analysed the ways of organizing and functioning of district and regional pedagogical groups in the period between years 1947-1950. The intention of that groups was the centralisation of pedagogical research; performed not only by experts, but mainly by teachers from various schools, too. These organisations had been functioned as part of the newborn State Pedagogical Institute in Bratislava. Teachers from praxis, by their daily connection with teaching practice, were able to search and study existing pedagogical problems. Professionals from State Pedagogical Institute received materials – results from local researches – and evaluated and prepared them to final form for publishing. Duty of the groups was to inform the center in Bratislava about all implemented activities. Their activities also included professional lectures on pedagogy – by this way was the partial development of pedagogical theory garanted. On the other side, all the activities of district and regional pedagogical groups were strongly deformed by ideological pressure.
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Ad 1. For an early modern historian, the most inspiring feature of the many changes that have taken place since 1990, at least with regard to the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, has been the development of relations with historians in the Commonwealth’s successor states: Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus in particular, but also Germany and Latvia.
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Oltenia is a region in the South-West Romania, with an individuality which was in attention of great events from Romanian history, starting from 1920 to 1989. In the present article we want to present in which fields and periods of the Romanian History we can talk about the ideological importance of Oltenia. The milestones 1920 and 1989 are interpreted as main moments in the history of Romania and Oltenia;
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The article provides a periodization of humanitarian cooperation between Japan and the USSR. The first stage was activity of the Press Office of the Soviet Union Council for Japan and the Soviet Information Office in the Land of the Rising Sun in 1946–1957. The second stage was the period of active policy of the USSR Embassy, together with the State Committee for Cultural Relations under the USSR Council of Ministers in 1957–1967. The third stage was defined by the activity of Soviet Embassy and Regional Authorities of Japan and the USSR in establishing cultural relations in 1967–1985. The fourth stage was humanitarian cooperation of both countries carried out under terms of the Soviet-Japan cultural agreement signed in 1986. The fourth stage covers the period from 1986 to 1991. The article identifies the main forms of humanitarian cooperation between two countries. The author believes that connections in the sphere of art were dominant. The Japanese public was an active subject of bilateral relations. The author considers the membership of the Soviet-Japan Friendship Movement and its participants (public organizations, Piece Movement, choral and musical collectives, private companies of Japan) and reveals the reasons for the Japanese public’s interest in Soviet culture based on archival documents and materials of the Japanese and Soviet periodicals. The author points out that the regional cooperation between two countries developed significantly and emphasizes the special role of the USSR Far East as a contact region with Japan.
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Soviet trade with Eastern European countries was one of the main forms of economic interaction within the socialist camp. The problem of imbalances in this trade traditionally has been associated with the politicization of intra-bloc relations. However, when harmonizing the interests of the USSR and the socialist interests vis-à-vis long-term trade agreements, economic motives were of great importance. This article discusses the process of harmonizing economic interests, using the case of Soviet-Polish trade relations in 1958–1964. This research based on archival documents from the Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU for Economic Cooperation with the Socialist Countries (in RGANI) and declassified documents from the special fund for the State Planning Commission of RGAE. The analysis shows that contradictions in trade issues provoked a discussion of a wider range of issues: military supplies, credit debt, and transit tariffs for the two countries. Moreover, each of the parties was guided by its own economic interests and rarely made concessions for political reasons. The Soviet government in 1958-1964 made a number of supply concessions, agreed to revise transit tariffs, and incurred part of the costs of maintaining the stability of intra-block trade in the distribution system. There was a change in the structure of Soviet-Polish trade, which significantly reduced the passive trade balance for Polish People’s Republic (RPL). Nevertheless, in accordance with Soviet calculations, after all these changes, trade with RPL and other socialist countries was profitable for the USSR.
More...Wizyta Nicolae Ceaușescu w Stanach Zjednoczonych w kwietniu 1978 r.
In April 1978 Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu visited the United States. He met with his counterpart Jimmy Carter and discussed current bilateral and multilateral issues. Romanian agenda for that visit was to strengthen the coun-try’s independence in the Soviet Bloc and to increase the international recognition of its leader. us agenda was to diversify the Soviet Bloc and to infl uence Roma-nian leadership to orient its internal policy towards respecting the human rights. This point was not reached. us achieved only the goals that could be described as belonging to “political realism”. Ceaușescu was not open for any idealistic prin-ciples and avoided the human rights topics. It was the last visit in the us of any leader of the Soviet Bloc countries before Gorbachev came to power.
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The article examines the petition campaign for the return of the Cathedral Mosque, organized by the Muslims of Leningrad in the second half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s. The campaign represents an example of a human rights activity (albeit in a limited sphere, for securing freedom of conscience), and should be taken into account when studying the history of the human and civil rights movement in the USSR. The language and argumentation used by authors of the petitions are analyzed. The article examines the religious life of Leningrad Muslims outside of the mosque (in particular, the holding of festive services at the Tatar cemetery in the village of Volkova). The article touches upon the problem of historical memory. The memories of the struggle for permission to build a mosque in St. Petersburg in tsarist times, preserved among Leningrad Muslims, were taken into account by officials when deciding whether to return this religious building to believers in the 1950s. The problem of returning the mosque is considered in the context of changes in the confessional policy of the country’s leadership. The article demonstrates the role of such a body as the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR touches upon this role in resolving issues of returning religious buildings to believers in the post-war period. Particular attention is paid to the relations within the Leningrad Muslim community. On the example of the conflict between imam-khatib Abdulbari N. Isaev and Chairman of the twenty (dvadtsatka) Usman Bogdanov, the author examines the system of power relations within religious communities in the USSR in the postwar period. In particular, the article mentions the narrative that Bogdanov proposed to subordinate dvadtsatka directly to the Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs in the Leningrad Region.
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Tekst jest artykułem recenzyjnym monografii Jana Kuklíka i René Petráša, Minorities and law in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1992, Karolinum Press, Prague 2017, poświęconej sytuacji prawnej mniejszości narodowych w Czechosłowacji w latach 1918–1922. Mimo pewnej tendencji do wykazania demokratycznego podejścia władz państwa do mniejszości w okresie międzywojennym monografia stanowi użyteczny przewodnik po przepisach prawnych dotyczących mniejszości narodowych w Czechosłowacji. The reviewed monograph by Jan Kuklík and René Petráš entitled Minorities and law in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1992, Karolinum Press, Prague 2017, is dedicated to the legal situation of national minorities in Czechoslovakia in the years 1918–1992. Although it constitutes a useful guide to appropriate legislation, the authors show some tendency to emphasise the democratic features of state policy towards minorities in the interwar period and lessen the significance of some of its flaws.
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W odpowiedzi na ankietę „Kwartalnika Historycznego” skupię się na historii najnowszej, którą znam lepiej niż inne okresy historyczne.
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The nationalisation of industry after 1945 is a topic of great importance for the history of Poland after the Second World War, which, however, has been insufficiently explored, especially with regard to in-depth research of particular cases. The takeover of industrial plants by the state authorities was complicated, especially in the Recovered Territories, where both everyday life and the administrative structures of the Polish state were in turmoil. The preserved archival materials made it possible to trace the process of nationalising several important food industry plants, namely the breweries in Szczecin, Słupsk and Szczecinek. The article analyses the intricate history of the takeover of these plants by the state authorities. In the course of research it was determined that although the Main Office of the Temporary State Administration, and later the District Liquidation Offices, had the best legal basis to have the full right to these plants, there were many more institutions interested in taking them over. On the local government level these were the City Board, the Provincial Office and the District Office, and on the state level the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Recovered Territories and the Central Planning Office. Additionally, producer cooperatives, initially supported by state authorities after the end of the war, also became involved. It was not until the late 1940s that these breweries came under the control of central state authorities, which took place at the expense of the producer cooperatives and local governments and, moreover, in a manner that raised legal questions.
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Gaining trust, both domestically and internationally, became a self-evident mission for the protagonists of the 1989 democratic revolution, something ever-present within the new policies aimed at a political and economic transition. This held true in particular with the Czechoslovak case. Unlike the situation in Poland or Hungary, where the legitimacy of the political transition was framed by the so-called Round Table Talks, revolutionaries from the Civic Forum (Občanské forum or OF) and the Public Against Violence (Verejnosť proti násiliu or VPN) had to extract their legitimacy directly from the very event of the Velvet Revolution. This exposed the policies of the OF and VPN to a participatory scrutiny of sorts in an even more imminent manner. In order to gain trust, at best transferable to actual political results, i.e. winning an election, the proponents of the democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia engaged in both policies and politics which would create an environment most preferable for their goals. This text focuses on the political language of ethics and politics, totalitarianism and Europeanization, focusing mainly on strategies used by the VPN and seeks to understand how an environment focused on developing and gaining trust functioned in the Slovak case.
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Demokratyczne zmiany w 1989 r. niewątpliwie stanowiły punkt zwrotny w historiografii polskiej dotyczącej okresu komunistycznego w dziejach Polski, umownie nazywanego historią najnowszą. Ich kulminacją było zniesienie cenzury w kwietniu następnego roku, a tym samym zlikwidowanie gorsetu politycznych i ideologicznych ograniczeń, narzuconych przez komunistów, który towarzyszył badaniom historycznym w Polsce po wojnie. Utrudnienia te dotyczyły zresztą nie tylko historii najnowszej, ale także wcześniejszych epok, np. I Rzeczypospolitej i okresu zaborów oraz II Rzeczypospolitej, zwłaszcza na polu stosunków polsko-rosyjskich i polsko-sowieckich.
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This study of the struggle between the government of the Polish People’s Republic and Solidarity in the years 1981-1984 discerns three key actors in Polish politics: the Communist party leadership and security apparatus, the arrested leaders of Solidarity, and the bishops and advisers of the Catholic Church. The PRL government made strategic decisions in this period regarding repression and liberalization. Following initial advanced preparation for the trial of eleven arrested leaders of Solidarity and KSS KOR, the government attempted to coerce the arrestees into leaving Poland, thus weakening the movement’s legitimacy. The article demonstrates how the interaction between the leaders of the two sides – mediated by bishops and advisers – produced a new dynamic and a shift in the existing political mechanism. What was once a mass movement transformed into a more regular, staffed organization with a greater role played by leaders, who symbolized the continuity of the movement and enabled Solidarity to weather the period of repression. The article shows the changes and tensions in the Solidarity movement, along with the changes that were occurring in parallel on the side of the government and the mediating third actor, i.e., the Catholic Church. This case study of the strategic clash that occurred at the beginning of the 1980s illustrates the transformations that took place within the government and Solidarity – transformations that would prove crucial to the transition process in 1988-1989.
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The collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989 required settlement with the past on many levels. This applies especially to settlements with communism. In the first years after change of the regime, many legal solutions were adopted to align accounts with the past, but in parallel the communist party was allowed to function. Only very few communist functionaries responsible for crimes were sentenced, however, many symbolic changes were carried out. It took more time to create the institutional framework - institutions dealing with the period 1948-1989 in Czech history. In recent years, the importance of this topic in Czech public life has increased again. The purpose of this article is to analyze legal, formal and institutional solutions and their functioning in the practice of the Czech Republic. The legal acts, institutions as well as the effects of their functioning and actions in the last 30 years have been examined.
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The changes occurring in countries of Central and Eastern Europe after 1945 deprived young people of their subjectivity, divested them of the possibility of legal activities outside the structures controlled by the rulers. Simultaneously, the activities taken by the latter threatened the values which were fundamental for the most of them. Some of young people attempted – more or less – to engage in active resistance, usually determined axiologically. It took, among other things, the form of refusal to participate in official youth organisations while staying in religious communities. Some also publicly expressed their oppositions in the form of participation in street demonstrations. Others joined the anti-communist underground or established their own underground groups. Young people’s anti-system attitudes were discussed on the examples of Belarus, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, the German Democratic Republic and Ukraine.
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British Fascism after the Holocaust, Routledge, New York, 2021, 215 pp.
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