"AT THIS SITE, A MONUMENT WILL BE INSTALLED": CHISINAU MONUMENTS AND COMMEMORATION PRACTICES DEDICATED TO FORCED SOVIET DEPORTATIONS

Author(s): Kateřina FUKSOVÁ / Language(s): English Issue: 33/2020

The article deals with the politics of memory in Moldova, emphasizing the memory of the forced Soviet deportations from Moldova in 1941–1951. The article aims to analyse contemporary Moldovan politics of memory and discuss it on the example of Chisinau monuments and commemoration practices dedicated to the forced Soviet deportations. As the main theoretical concept for the analysis of the monuments serves Pierre Nora's term lieux de memoire, which is defined as the symbolic elements of the memorial heritage of any community (Nora, 1989). In the article, three monuments are discussed: 'Monument to the Bessarabians massacred by Bolsheviks', 'Monument in the Memory of Victims of the Soviet Occupation and Totalitarian Soviet Regime' and the 'Train of Sorrow'.

"Continuities and discontinuities. Educational program of The Planned Parenthood Association in Krakow (1957 – 1993)"

Author(s): Barbara Klich-Kluczewska / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2014

The article presents the program of sexual education prepared and offered by Krakow Branch of the Planned Parenthood Association in the wider context of socio-political situation in Krakow (1956 – 1989). Since the beginning of the Association’s existence, the special attention was paid to the development of educational program, which concerned the different aspects of „family life“. The article is going to answer the questions about its goals, the educational tools used to achieve them and its social targets. To accurately determine the position of the Association in the city‘s community I will analyse its foundation and activities in wider context of the pre-war traditions of the organisation and the activities regarding premarital counselling undertaken by the Krakow Catholic Church.

"Demokratizačná akcia"

Študentské čistky na slovenských vysokých školách na prelome rokov 1948 a 1949

Author(s): Marta Glossová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2-3/2019

In her study, the authoress examines one of the ways the newly established Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was using since February 1948 in an attempt to build new loyal elites and to prevent the formation of non-conformist ones. The topic is the screening of study results and political reliability of Slovak university students, which took place at the turn of 1948 and 1949 under the euphemistic name “democratization campaign” or simply “democratization”. The authoress sets the campaign into a broader political framework and into the context of the ideological discourse of those days. In doing so, she compares it to a parallel, so-called “study screening” in the Czech Lands, and also sets it in the context of multiple waves of the “purging” of Slovak universities between 1948 and 1960, showing its connection with a subsequent purge launched in 1950 as part of a campaign against the so-called Slovak bourgeois nationalism. Using results of her research in Slovak archives, she describes and summarizes the organization, course, and outcome of the “democratization campaign”. The screening used both criteria related to study results (employed primarily to justify the screening) and political criteria (reflecting the true objective of the screening process); a combination of these two groups of criteria ultimately produced several categories of students. Every student was either cleared and allowed to study on, or expelled – either temporarily, for two to three semesters during which he or she was expected to work in production, or permanently. It should be noted that there existed substantial differences in numbers of expelled students among various universities and faculties, and the authoress is trying to find an explanation. Compared to the outcome of the “study screening” in the Czech Lands, that of the “democratization campaign” in Slovakia was generally more lenient, often falling short of radical expectations of its organizers. The authoress claims that Slovakia’s outcome reflects three factors: lack of and need for skilled experts in various fields compared to the Czech Lands, the weak position of the Communist Party among students and teachers at some Slovak universities, and the existence of an Appeal Commission at the Slovak Ministry of Education, Sciences and Arts which reversed or changed many expulsion rulings. The Appeal Commission’s chairman Ernest Otto and the Commissioner of Education, Communist writer Ladislav Novomeský (1904–1976), thus found themselves in a conflict with leaders of the University Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, their more liberal approach to the “democratization campaign” contributing to their political and criminal persecution in the 1950s.

"Dubultā koda" pazīmes ortodoksālā socreālisma posma tēlotājā mākslā Latvijā

Author(s): Eduards Kļaviņš / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 26/2022

The phases of orthodox Socialist Realism art in Latvia (1940 –1941, 1945–1956) are already researched and interpreted in many publications of Latvian art historians (Ilze Konstante, Stella Pelše, Elita Ansone, Sergejs Kruks, et al.). They reveal the robust suppression of local art life by the totalitarian regime during the Soviet occupation, the force of the ideological pressure on artists and describe the considerable body of artworks named Socialist Realism. Tracing the process, an impression of irresistible dominance of this production could arise. Nevertheless, in order to be more realistic, some hidden deviations from the official art policy and canonic requirements of Socialist Realism should be indicated. They emerged already during the first year of Soviet rule as a difference between published conformity and presented artworks, as a specific duality of iconography and its connotations or as a dichotomy between required subject matter and formal style. The double codes of art life of Latvia continued after the Second World War, when artists had to adapt themselves once more to the cultural policies of the totalitarian state. In most cases the reason for it was quite pragmatic because the state institutions were the main art consumers. The prescribed themes for art production were given together with the dogma of Socialist Realism and examples to be followed. For all that, in the course of the first post-war years artists managed to escape in the realm of politically neutral genres and images; landscapes dominated exhibitions, the legitimate and desirable compositions with images of the so-called working people (labourers, farmers) were made according to the tradition of the 1930s without unquestionable features of Soviet life (paintings of Eduards Kalniņš, Ārijs Skride, Jānis Liepiņš, Ģederts Eliass). The same could be said about some graduation works of the Latvian Art Academy of the time. A historical scene “The Kauguri Rebellions” (1945, Riga, Latvian National Museum of Art, further LNMA), painted by the former prominent modernist Oto Skulme, was an ideologically required depiction of the class struggle; on the other hand, it could be read as an anticipation of the national liberation. The picturesque style of the work was far from mimetic Socialist Realism. Versions of “Entangled” (all in the LNMA) modelled by the leading sculptor Teodors Zaļkalns could tell us about artist’s dependence on the changing political powers. The ideological pressure on Latvian art increased from 1949 until the middle of the 1950s; the historical background contains brutal repression, deportations and includes individual stories of deported artists. The result of the growing engagement and conformity – many works of Latvian orthodox Socialist Realism with all the necessary elements of the current policy. The largest exhibitions of 1949 and 1950 were full of artefacts with demanded subjects; painted and sculpted images of the dictator Stalin were inevitable. The most notable examples (the works of Oto Skulme, Arnolds Pankoks, Ojārs Ābols, Semjons Gelbergs, Aleksandra Briede, Jānis Briedis and others) were already examined in Soviet times and in recent publications. Still, the hidden double-coded art life was not totally exhausted. Thematic escapism gradually recovered and already in 1953 landscapes dominated the representative exhibition of Latvian creative artists in Riga once more. In 1954 the official art critic Arturs Lapiņš “unmasked” painters who worked with “two easels” – one for commissioned Socialist Realism works and the other for individual formalism. The dichotomy of subject and form was also preserved. Some artists from the older generation (the aforementioned Eliass and Zaļkalns, graphic artist Pēteris Upītis, et al.) continued to produce works repeating their pre-Soviet style and supplying them with titles typical for Socialist Realism. The youngest generation (students of the Art Academy) acquired another double-coded concept. Painters, who composed conventional scenes with farmers’ work or with happy children, had to create the obligatory optimistic mood not only by postures and facial expressions but also by sunlight effects. Therefore, volumes were modelled using colours dependent on the light of plein air. The role of brushwork increased. Sometimes elementary narratives were reduced to the simple fixation of depicted figures and their dynamics. This development towards Impressionism resulted in a mutation of Socialist Realism and could be called “Sots Impressionism”. Historical Impressionism was rejected by the authorities of the orthodox Socialist Realism, nevertheless, its elements were integrated into some individual versions of the style, including the achievements of some leading Soviet representatives of it (Yuri Pimenov, Arkady Plastov, Tatyana Yablonskaya). The overall phenomenon has recently become a subject for art historians; Vern Swanson praised “Soviet Impressionism” in his monographs of 2001 and 2007, Eha Komissarov staged an exhibition of “Stalinist Impressionism” in Estonian art (Tallin, 2016). In Latvia two graduation works of Art Academy students Bruno Celmiņš and Zigurds Kampars are good examples of “Sots Impressionism” (both 1954, LNMA), the best was an urban plein air scene “At a Book Table” (1955, Latvian Art Academy) by Gunārs Cīlītis. The trend continued in the next years (notable the paintings of Edgars Iltners, Rita Valnere, et al.) during the so-called political “thaw” and led to further mutations of local Socialist Realism.

"Hele, lufťáci přijeli..."

Proč je stále v oblibě chalupářství v českých zemích

Author(s): Irena Cejpová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3-4/2020

Petra Schindler-Wisten's monograph titled "About holiday homes and people: Holiday homes in the Czech Lands in the period of so-called normalization and transformation" (Prague: Univerzita Karlova and Karolinum, 2017) maps the phenomenon of holiday cottages in the Czech Lands since its very beginnings in the 19th century almost until today. In this respect, she focuses on the post-war period of the Communist regime, in particular the 1970s and 1980s, the years of the so-called normalization, when this type of spending one’s free time, and partly also a lifestyle consisting in spending weekends and holidays in own houses and cottages, indeed became a mass phenomenon in Czechoslovakia. Using results of oral history research, she is looking for reasons why the so-called “second housing” became so popular among various groups of the Czech society, social and economic differences notwithstanding. The reviewer appreciates the publication as the first attempt to deal with the topic in question in a clear and comprehensive manner and from a historical point of view rather than from sociological or socio-geographic ones, which represents a significant factual enrichment of the current state of knowledge. However, she also formulates some methodological reservations with respect to the research project whose results are presented in reviewed work, claiming that not enough clear reasons have been given to justify its starting points and outlining untapped opportunities in this respect.

"Křičel jsem: – Mrdat, mrdat!"

Vítězslav Nezval a jeho poetika Moskvy

Author(s): Tomáš Glanc / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3-4/2020

In August 1934, poet and writer Vítězslav Nezval (1900–1958), a leading personality of the Czechoslovak inter-war art avant-garde and also a member of the Communist party, visited Moscow as one of the Western guests invited to the founding congress of the Union of Soviet Writers; one year later, he published a prosaic-essayistic reflection of his visit under the title "The Invisible Moscow" (Neviditelná Moskva. Praha: F. Borový, 1935). The purpose of the present study approached from a semiotic angle is to obtain access to the intentional meaning of this specific testimony concealed behind a factual description of events and environments. The author first outlines a broader socio-political context consisting in an intensive interest of Western left-wing intellectuals in the Soviet Union between the world wars and, on the other hand, in systematic efforts of the Soviet leadership to make use of this potential for their own benefit. Nezval ranked among artists who felt a priori sympathies toward the Soviet social experiment, and they are clearly seen in his text, although he himself declared that his intention was not to provide a testimony about the Soviet “objective reality” which is what media reports or articles do. To understand Nezval’s work, the author believes it must be kept in mind that Nezval, while in the Soviet Union, was looking for, first and foremost, inspiration and connections with poetic and ideological principles he professed. Nezval’s cognitive method is intuition, free of any rational and critical reflections, and his creative principle is imagination, whose incarnation Nezval founds in surrealism. The reality around him serves as a matter for a distillation of experiences occurring in a dream mode. This allows him to overlook or willfully interpret various phenomena related, for example, to the repressive aspect of Stalin’s regime or the onerous everydayness of the Soviet Union’s citizens. The author sees the dominant feature of this dreamlike experience and the line connecting seemingly incompatible segments of reality into all-embracing lyrical intoxication in an erotic principle. Nezval is excited by Moscow as an object of bliss, as a source of sexual arousal. This principle is offered to him as a key enabling an individual to cross the boundary of individualism and blend into the society as a bridge between the eternity of sexual ecstasy and the eternity of the classless Communist society, thus promising the fulfillment of human utopias. The author provides an analysis of the text of "The Invisible Moscow" in support of his conclusions, and links them to some period esthetic and philosophical concepts.

"Naš odnos do Italijanov naj bo miren in dostojen, toda nič več". Nekateri vidiki razpetosti med nacionalnim in internacionalnim med slovenskimi komunisti na Primorskem

Author(s): Bojan Godeša / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 1/2000

The paper deals with the activities of the Slovene communists in Primorska during the Second World War, where the Communist Party of Slovenia often faced the dilemma of how to reconcile the national interests of its struggle with international ones. The most burning issues for the Slovene communists concerned their relations with the Italian population, the status of Trieste and their cooperation with the Communist Party of Italy in Primorska.

"Retragerea la pădure", nu "retragerea la munte"

Author(s): Constantin C. Giurescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/1976

Am ales această temă în cadrul secţiei „Procesul de formare a poporului român", fiindcă mi se pare că are o deosebită însemnătate. Sînt anumite formule care se repetă din generaţie în generaţie; a apucat să le spună o mare personalitate sau se găsesc în lucrări de seamă şi pe urmă continuă a fi spuse fără ca să se procedeze la o cerce­ tare mai amănunţită a lor.

"RUSKA IDEJA" KAO ELEMENT POLITIČKE KULTURE RUSIJE

Author(s): Milan Subotić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/1996

Starting from the widespread opinion that the reason and explanation for the failure of a rapid democratic transformation of post-communist Russia should be sought in the characteristics of the Russian political culture, the author interprets current discussions on the concept of the "Russian political culture" as a renewal and extension of the traditional philosophical-political debate about the meaning of the "Russian idea". In the first part of the paper Almond’s classical definition of "political culture" is presented. The fruitfulness of applying this concept in understanding communism is subsequently analyzed, stressing the importance of thematicizing Russian tradition in explaining the emergence and functioning of Bolshevism.

"Tripe Soup for All Women!"

Transgression of Gender Boundaries as Part of Female Identity in Communist and Contemporary Bulgaria

Author(s): Albena Shkodrova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

There is growing interest into how cultural frameworks produce stereotypes of “masculine” and “feminine” foods. The patterns and dynamics of this process have been discussed mainly from a socio-cultural perspective, but the research thus far has failed to create a conceptual framework to explain both the persistence in the association of some foods with a specific gender and shifts in others. Based on a case study of attitudes in communist and post-communist Bulgaria towards tripe soup – a dish with great potential to be perceived as manly – this article suggests that it is useful to consider food gendering as composed of several levels of codification. One of them is the perception about what constitutes masculinity and femininity in general, and this transpires to be the most conservative and consistent across periods and cultural frameworks. The second level of codification is the attribution to foods of certain traits, which are then associated with the content of masculinity and/or femininity. The associations made on this level are sometimes able to shift, depending on the cultural framework, but they can also form stable compounds, such as the association between meat and masculinity. The third level of codification is the inclination of the sexes to transgress the borders set by the first two levels in the process of building their gender identity. As gender is not something that one is, but something that one does, individuals assume their gender roles depending upon circumstances, and it is possible that this level of “codification” is a level of constant enactments, the most volatile of the three. This article investigates how tripe soup was constructed as “masculine” and how these discourses have been challenged. It argues that the process reflects shifts in the acceptability of women’s association with “masculinity”, rather than changes in the perceptions of what constitutes “the feminine” or “the masculine”.

"Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem". Illusioni e sconfitte dei comunisti ebrei nella letteratura ebraico-polacca del dopoguerra

Author(s): Laura Quercioli Mincer / Language(s): Italian Issue: 2/2008

La dicotomia fra particolarismo e universalismo è centrale nel pensiero ebraico. La prospettiva messianica, che alcuni autori e correnti di pensiero profetizzano come salvezza per i giusti della terra indipendentemente dal loro credo', è stata spesso vista alla base della partecipazione ebraica ai movimenti che propugnavano il riscatto sociale.

"Ulbricht-Doktrin" oder "Gomułka-Doktrin"? Das Bemühen der Volksrepublik Polen um eine geschlossene Politik des kommunistischen Blocks gegenüber der westdeutschen Ostpolitik 1966/67

Author(s): Wanda Jarząbek / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2006

When it became apparent with the so-called peace note of March 1966, Władysław Gomułka and the Polish leadership regarded the new orientation of the West German Ostpolitik as a threat to their policy towards Germany pursued up to then. Among the main aims of this German policy, which had been drafted after his obtaining the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (P.Z.P.R.) in October 1956, and which the author defines as “Gomułka Doctrine”, were the international recognition of the final character of the Oder-Neisse line (also by the Federal Republic) and the weakening of Bonn’s position in international politics, not least motivated by the desire to prolong, if not prevent at all, a reunification of Germany. Like the GDR, Poland strove to take advantage of the Federal Republic’s interest in relations with the countries of the Eastern bloc in order to realize its own goals. Both states considered Moscow’s policy, which was highly interested in settling relations with the Federal Republic and in establishing broader economic contacts, and therefore did not want to confront Bonn with unpleasant demands, to be unsatisfactory. The other bloc countries, too, were in a better starting position for talks with the West German government, since their bilateral relations with the Federal Republic were far less burdened by history. In this situation, Gomułka endeavoured to work out a joint policy for the bloc countries, which was to be based on a catalogue of conditions to be fulfilled by the Federal Republic when taking up diplomatic relations with any of the bloc countries. One of Poland’s possible allies was the GDR, even though the leaders of the two states did not have a liking for each other and the bilateral cooperation did not work very well. In early April, both states set their conditions and tried to have them included into the joint programmes of the bloc countries. Likewise, they attempted to move Moscow to support their plan to coordinate the German policy of the Eastern bloc. A lot has been written about the role Walter Ulbricht played in this context around 1966/67, while Gomulka’s significance has remained underestimated. The present paper intends to illuminate the activities of Polish politics at that time. Among other things, it describes the activities of the P.Z.P.R. leadership and Polish diplomacy concerning the other Eastern bloc countries, which were to be urged into solidarity with Poland at the cost of realizing their own interests. While historians have usually restricted themselves to relations within the triangle Federal Republic - Poland - GDR, this broader perspective allows the author to integrate the conflicting interests of the individual states within the Warsaw Pact, which, from the outside, has often been perceived as a monolithic bloc.

"Ковачница за мъже" или ... задължителната наборна казарма в представите на българина през Социализма

Author(s): Iliya Valev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2014

One widespread proverb in Bulgaria, knowing some different versions, says that “Man, who did not passed conscription is not a man”, “A boy, who failed to enter military service is second-hand man”, “A man, who has not walked as a soldier knows nothing”. What exactly is conscription according to public understanding of Bulgarians? What attitudes have the society to compulsory conscription? Frontier of what is the portal on the military unit? These and other issues related to conscription during socialism will be explored.

"Свешената книга" в романовата структура на "Хайка за вълци" от Ивайло Петров - релации и трансформации

Author(s): Zapryan Kozludzhov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

Ivailo Petrov's novel 'Wolf Hunt' is a dramatic saga with a story covering a long and contradictory period of Bulgarian history, from the first years after World War II to 1965. The fates of Ivan Shibilev, Mona Zhendo, Kalcho, Nikolin, Stoyan Kralev and their sons and daoughters intertwine and grow apart in passions and conflicts. This book is the story of people who are born during a totalitarian regime or die, frequently because of what they love. The hunt is the symbol of their thirst for revenge, the Old Testament 'an eye for an eye', with the outcome/redemption being presented as a pain of the soul caused by the loss of human happiness. The study discusses the presence of biblical motifs and images and the manner in which the author of the novel works with them. The moral categories through which each individual considers his/her life are skilfully woven in the book by the careful use of biblical symbols and messages. The characters in 'Wolf Hunt' fully experience the passions and sufferings of the Old Testament characters, thereby redeeming the original human sin.

"Социалистический реализм" и драма болгарского творца (середина 40-х - середина 50-х годов)

Author(s): Nataliya Hristova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1-2/1998

(De)formovanie vidieka v procese kolektivizácie

Author(s): Martina Fiamová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2016

(Dokumentární příloha) O některých chybách v činnosti Komunistické strany Československa

Author(s): / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1-2/2016

The whole article is a translation from Russian of a top secret reoprt, which has been sent to M. A. Suslov. M. A. Suslov was a soviet politican of the late stalinistic and Brezhnev era.

(Ne)legitimni revizionizam: pravo i (pseudo)istoriografske revizije na zapadu i istoku

Author(s): Vladimir P. Petrović / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

The contribution is analyzing the legal aspects of historiographical revisionism, in an attempt to highlight the role of the courts in delineating between legitimate historical reevaluation of the past and the denial of essential historical facts, the latter being referred to as negationsim. The experience of Western countries in combating negationism through criminalisation of various forms of denial of mass crimes or through the civil litigation is juxtaposed to the confused postotalitarian dynamics in Eastern Europe and its anarchic reception in the region of the former Yugoslavia.

(Post)socialističtí ekonomové jako objekt historického zkoumání

Současný stav bádání a perspektivy

Author(s): Václav Rameš / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2017

The article examines the current state of research in the field of the history of economic sciences and activities of Czechoslovak economists in the era of socialism. It provides an overview of basic contributions, both domestic and foreign, on this topic since the 1990s, examining works of Johanna Bockman, Jiří Suk and Gil Eyal in a greater detail. It also mentions the latest research projects concerning this topic. In the end, the author offers a list of available sources (archival documents and published memoirs) which can be used in future research.

(Proto)underground. Několik poznámek k vývoji podzemního hnutí

Author(s): František (Čuňas) Stárek,Ladislav Kudrna / Language(s): Czech Issue: 04/2016

In this study the authors explore the development of the movement later dubbed the underground, a group of people who had retreated into society’s undergrowth to get away from the regime but whose harsh punishment by the latter inspired and kick-started the Charter 77 movement.