Preserving Soviet-era mosaics in Georgia
A conversation with Nini Palavandishvili, a curator and researcher involved in the process of documenting and mapping Soviet-era mosaics in Georgia. Interviewer: Natalia Mosashvili.
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A conversation with Nini Palavandishvili, a curator and researcher involved in the process of documenting and mapping Soviet-era mosaics in Georgia. Interviewer: Natalia Mosashvili.
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Bessarabia became forcibly communist. Territorial, administrative and economic organization sought to de-nationalize, to eliminate the Romanian’s identity and to quickly and arbitrary integration into the Soviet State. The Special Service of Information knew the tools and the methods used by the USSR in all occupied territories and in 1941 informed the decision making agencies like the Presidency of the Council of Ministries. The notes provided information to Romanian State about the impact of those measures on population and the general state of social unsatisfactory concerning the Soviets misbehave. In fact, the information provided by the Romanian Intelligence Service was anticipating a growing in coercion which was confirmed after the liberation of Bessarabia in the second half of 1941 and the discovery of the criminal apparatus that functioned during the year of Bolshevik occupation.
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The Comintern represented in the international relations of the inter-war period a transnational global force. It has been rightly described as an organisation with political program ambitions extending beyond national boundaries. Its sections were active in most countries of the globe. The involvement of the Comintern with the Baltic states and the activities of Baltic communists in the transnational framework of the organisation has remained almost unexplored. This article deals with the period from 1918 to 1935 and looks at the Baltic communists’ activities in the Comintern before the Great Purges in the USSR.
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The Alternative Economy: Informal Exchanges and Criminal Activities from the perspective of the Communist regime’s institutional framework. Shortages plagued Romanian communism from the very beginning to its inevitable downfall in 1989. People developed strategies to overcome it, based on informal exchange, creating an alternative economic system. Many of these activities involved stealing from the workplace, embezzling, abuse of position, and smuggling. It also involves a certain level of trust between individuals, allowing them to co-operate despite the risks. The authorities tried through surveillance and sting operations to reduce the extent of these activities, which were hindering the official economy. They went as far as infiltrating queues to gather information on the state of mind of the population.
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In 2020, we commemorate many historical anniversaries associated with the period of the Hussite wars and the White Mountain events. While in the subconscious of a large part of the Czech nation the period of the so-called Hussite revolution is often perceived as one of the most famous periods in national history, the Battle of White Mountain and subsequent events are perceived as one of the greatest tragedies in the Czech nation. The events, which are six hundred years old and four hundred years old, are still alive and are reflected in current political and cultural events, for example, the stormy disputes over the restoration of the Marian Column in Old Town Square in Prague. The author of this study intends to look at the above-mentioned events as an instrument of the political ideological struggle waged by the Communist Party in the 1950s through the work of the then prominent Communist ideologue and Minister of Education Zdeněk Nejedlý.
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It is already a well-known reality, proven by the numerous volumes, studies and research efforts, published after 1990 on this topic that the great personality and actions of Father Daniil Sandu Tudor, who has developed intellectually in the fertile and diversified environment of the inter-war Romania, still arouses debates and controversies. Researching the biography of Sandu Tudor during the Second World War, when, as it is known, he was mobilized, will follow the dynamism of the subject towards the knowledge of God, the spiritual progress, which undoubtedly corresponds to an increasingly bright ascetic work. In his endeavor to reconstruct the image of the Rugul Aprins (The Burning Bush) of that time as truthfully as possible, the author corroborated the documents from the Archive with the memorialistic literature, but also with the interview of the only person who can testify today about what did the prayer of the heart mean for the students, and also for the seniors integrated into the Movement – Father Nicolae Bordasiu.
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This study is the second part of a larger research project, which aims to study poetry as a form of cultural and spiritual resistance in the system of political prisons of communist Romania. The author focuses his research now on the detainees who were arrested after 1945.
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Today, fantasies of Jewish conspiracy cast Jews as cosmopolitan agents of globalisation and as enemies of national values. But conspiratorial antisemitism has taken many different forms. In the twentieth century, none was more potent or more destructive than the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism – the paranoid fear that Jews incited and directed Communist revolutions in order to advance their own interests. This text will discuss the history of the Judeo-Bolshevik myth, analyse its shifting functions from the Russian Revolution to the end of Communism in 1989, and explore the legacy that this myth has for today.
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Review of: Adnan Velagić, Dok su gorjele buktinje. Historija socijalističke Jugoslavije, BZK „Preporod“ – Gradsko društvo Mostar, Mostar, 2020.
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«C’ést dans la saumure que notre peuple a trempé son pain dans le passé - a dit le camarade Enver Hoxha - mais il a si miraculeusement gravé son assiette en bois. Le sentiment fin esthétique et son goût artistique se sont faits remarquer partout dans les merveilleuses rhapsodies, dans les costumes fantastiques, dans les danses miraculeuses. .. Le génie artistique de notre peuple se voit partout où l’on jette le regard, partout où l’on pose la main». Par ces mots qui brillent de la fierté et de l’affection profonde pour le peuple, notre dirigeant inoubliable met en évidence la vitalité du génie créateur artistique collectif.
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L’oeuvre du camarade Enver est volumineuse et avec des dimensions exceptionnelles. Elles est aussi titanesque par la peine et la sueur que l’auteur y a versé que remarquable par l’érudition. Chaque phrase et mot de sa plume, lorsqu’il parle ou converse, rapporte, questionne ou écoute, affirme ou ironise et lorsqu’il polémique et fustige, cherche à être analysé, à être appris et en tirer profit. On y trouve des connaissances qui ont des valeurs non seulement pour hier et pour aujourd’hui mais aussi pour le lendemain. C’est une encyclopédie toujours fraîche, aussi simple et claire que profonde. Tout chercheur de la culture populaire se trouve ainsi devant un‘e source originale toujours intarissable, à la fois oeuvre théorique et archives authentiques qui n’a pas son pareil.
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The Anti-Communist Resistance in the Făgăraș Mountains (Romania) as a Challenge for Social Memory and an Exercise of Critical Thinking. Social memory is dynamic, adaptable to the ensemble of group perceptions on the present. In the first decade after WWII there were numerous active anti-communist armed resistance groups in the Romanian mountains. The most powerful resistance groups operated on the southern and northern sides of the Făgăraș Mountains. According to the results of exploratory research conducted in 2020 the representations of the anti-communist resistance in the mountains in Romanian young people’s memories are feeble. Retrieving representations of the resistance is useful as critical exercise in understanding history, as source of identity comfort and as part of the lesson on totalitarianism.
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Hungary has been one of the most favored countries in terms of agricultural crops. There were also difficult times regarding the production of cereals and their export during the world wars and, especially, after the installation of Soviet communism in Hungary. From 1948–1949, an integral part of the Sovietization of Central and Eastern Europe was the Stalinist reorganization of agriculture through collectivization. Collectivization, since 1949, has destroyed much of the Hungarian peasantry, as has happened in all states subject to the Soviet regime. At the beginning of the collectivization campaign, only 13% of the country's arable land became agricultural cooperatives, but by the end of March 1961 the percentage had reached 70%. In parallel, the number of members of the agricultural cooperative increased from 169 thousand to 1.2 million. The agricultural policy of the governments of Mátyás Rákosi and János József Kádár was based on ideological arguments aimed at the socialist restructuring of production and rural life in Hungary. The Soviet Union took advantage of the difficult situation, from an agricultural point of view, of its eastern sisters, to sell them cereals, for bread, but also fodder, for animals. The party ideology camouflaged the social and agrarian crisis, with which the Hungarian society struggled.
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A cult of the leader was an element of the communist system in the Stalinist era. The symptom of that phenomenon was the celebration of the sixtieth birthday of Hungarian communist leader Mátyás Rákosi. The celebration and preparation were widely described in Hungarian press – one of the most important propaganda instrument – used by the communists to influence the society. The analysis of four daily papers indicates that regime’s aim was to strengthen the appropriate image of Rákosi. Furthermore, it was necessary to mobilize the workers to undertake birthday commitments to increase production and to execute the five-year plan. A huge number of press articles combined with their enthusiastic undertone were supposed to exert pressure on readers pushing them to enter a competition movement.
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The article analyses the surroundings of the suffering of Sister Žarka Ivasić, a member of the Society of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul – Zagreb, in the context of Communist repression towards the Catholic Church during the initial post-war years (1945-1946). Highlighted is the difficulty of an objective reconstruction of the events which led to the staged process and the death of Sister Žarka Ivasić, and refers to the Ustasha attack on Otočac and the Otočac hospital 13th-14th September 1943 with regards to the one-sided available sources and literature (of Communist origin) and information obtained about the event in testimonies of witnesses of her conviction and death, who also suffered the repression of the authorities. The charges and death of Sister Žarka Ivasić notably served her monastic (Catholic), as well as nursing calling. In the article also wishing to be shown is that the growth and shaping of her "guilt" towards the needs of the Communist authorities in any given moment is visible, in the documentation from various years, which is one of the important indicators of the manipulation of the entire process as well as the innocence of Sister Žarka Ivasić.
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The newspaper Tan, led by Sertels, came to the forefront with its left-leaning publication policy in the Turkish press history. During the World War Two, the Tan newspaper adopted a pro-Allied anti-German principle consistent with Turkey's foreign policy. The newspaper, had a distinct sympathy towards the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Following the end of the war, Turkish democracy entered the transition to multi-party political life. At that point, the Tan newspaper, which advocated for single-party liquidation, democracy and freedom, had openly supported the new party preparations of the memorandum of the four group of Republican People's Party. For this purpose, a press was established under the name of Görüşler. The political stance of Tan and Görüşler had disturbed some circles. On December 4, 1945, the printing house where Tan and Görüşler were published, was destroyed as a result of some protests. The events of December 4, 1945, described as the Tan event, joined by the people from different parts of the political spectrum, like; Turgut Özal, Süleyman Demirel, İlhan Selçuk, Altemur Kılıç, Celadet Moralıgil, Ali İhsan Göğüş and Orhan Birgit. In this study, the newspaper Tan During the World War Two and the participation of ideologically divergent names in the destruction of Tan Printing House was examined from a historical perspective.
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Jerzy Wojciech Borejsza was the son of communist activist Jerzy Borejsza, referred to as an ‘international communist’, and Ewa née Kantor. His grandfather Abraham Goldberg was one of the leaders of Polish Zionists. Borejsza described himself as ‘a Pole of Jewish origin’. His personality was greatly influenced by the Second World War experiences, including the pogrom of Jews in German-occupied Lwów in July 1941 and the tragic events of occupied Warsaw. As a result of the decision of the communist party authorities, in 1952, Borejsza was sent to study in the Soviet Union, first to Kazan, then to Moscow. This made it impossible for him to study Polish philology in Warsaw; Borejsza, therefore, chose historical studies. After returning to Poland in 1957, he undertook research on the history of Polish emigration after the January Uprising (1863–4). He was also interested in the history of the Polish socialist movement and its connections to socialism in Western Europe. Later, Borejsza intervened in the historiography of the Crimean War (1853–6), intending to bring this forgotten armed conflict back to light. He coined the phrase ‘the beautiful nineteenth century’, in contrast to the twentieth century as a time of hatred, extermination, and the Holocaust. Initially, Borejsza worked at the Polish Academy of Sciences (1958–64), then at the University of Warsaw (1964–75). In the early 1970s, he began research on Italian fascism and Italy’s unsuccessful attempts to create a fascist International.
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Although Polish research on the Communist International (Comintern) history began in the interwar period, the existing literature does not constitute a highly developed field. This becomes particularly evident when Polish studies are compared to research produced in Russia, Germany, the United States, and Italy, or even India and Korea. This state of affairs is, to some degree, a result of political conditions that influenced, and continue to influence, access to archival sources. For this reason, interest in the Comintern after 1989 closely resembles the situation in research on the history of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP), which was, after all, one of the sections of the Third International. In both cases – in research on the Comintern and on the KPP – the focus was on shedding light on historical “blind spots” rather than on developing systematic studies of political organizations. Largely thanks to Professor Jerzy W. Borejsza, improvements have become evident over the past two decades in Polish research on the Comintern and related issues. Indeed, many important case studies have emerged, although what Polish research still lacks are wide-ranging monographs and analytical syntheses.
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