The near abroad Wojnowski, Zbigniew
The near abroad,
2017, 2017, 2017-06-16, 2017-05-16
eBook
From the Soviet perspective, Eastern Europe was the near abroad--more accessible than the capitalist West, yet also unambiguously foreign. Observing their western neighbours, citizens of the USSR ...developed new ideas about the role of states, borders, and national identities in the Soviet empire. In The Near Abroad, Zbigniew Wojnowski traces how Soviet Ukrainian identities developed in dialogue and confrontation with the USSR's neighbours in Eastern Europe. The author aptly challenges the dominant chronologies of late Soviet history by arguing that patriotism framed heated debates about the future of the Soviet state even amongst the rising tide of cynicism and disengagement from public life. Wojnowski's insightful analysis illuminates the mental geographies that continue to shape relations and conflicts between Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe to this very day. Unlike most other histories of Ukraine, The Near Abroad does not reduce Ukrainian nationalism to anti-Soviet views and behaviours.
A War of Songs Andrei Rogatchevski, Arve Hansen, David-Emil Wickström, Yngvar Steinholt
2019, 20190530, 2019-05-28, Letnik:
203
eBook
This multi-authored monograph consists of the sections: "Pop Rock, Ethno- Chaos, Battle Drums, and a Requiem: The Sounds of the Ukrainian Revolution," "The Euromaidan's Aftermath and the Genre of ...Answer Song: A Musical Dialogue Between the Antagonists?", "Exposing the Fault Lines beneath the Kremlin's Restorative Geopolitics: Russian and Ukrainian Parodies of the Russian National Anthem," "'Lasha Tumbai', or 'Russia, Goodbye'? The Eurovision Song Contest as a Post-Soviet Geopolitical Battleground," and "(Post-)Soviet Rock Soundtracks the Donbas Conflict."
Why do some attempts to conclude alliance treaties end in failure? From the inability of European powers to form an alliance that would stop Hitler in the 1930s, to the present inability of Ukraine ...to join NATO, states frequently attempt but fail to form alliance treaties. In Arguing about Alliances, Paul Poast sheds new light on the purpose of alliance treaties by recognizing that such treaties come from negotiations, and that negotiations can end in failure. In a book that bridges Stephen Walt's Origins of Alliance and Glenn Snyder's Alliance Politics, two classic works on alliances, Poast identifies two conditions that result in non-agreement: major incompatibilities in the internal war plans of the participants, and attractive alternatives to a negotiated agreement for various parties to the negotiations. As a result, Arguing about Alliances focuses on a group of states largely ignored by scholars: states that have attempted to form alliance treaties but failed. Poast suggests that to explain the outcomes of negotiations, specifically how they can end without agreement, we must pay particular attention to the wartime planning and coordinating functions of alliance treaties. Through his exploration of the outcomes of negotiations from European alliance negotiations between 1815 and 1945, Poast offers a typology of alliance treaty negotiations and establishes what conditions are most likely to stymie the attempt to formalize recognition of common national interests.
After Empire Torbakov, Igor; Plokhy, Serhii
2018, 20181030, 2018-10-30, Letnik:
191
eBook, Book
Igor Torbakov explores the nexus between various forms of Russian political imagination and the apparently cyclic process of the decline and fall of Russia's imperial polity over the last hundred ...years. While Russia's historical process is by no means unique, two features of its historical development stand out. First, the country's history is characterized by dramatic political discontinuity. In the past century, Russia changed its "historical skin" three times: following the disintegration of the Tsarist Empire accompanied by violent civil war, it was reconstituted as the communist USSR, whose breakup a quarter century ago led to the emergence of the present- day Russian Federation. Each of the dramatic transformations in the twentieth century powerfully affected the notion of what "Russia" is and what it means to be Russian. Second, alongside Russia's political instability, there is, paradoxically, a striking picture of geopolitical stability and of remarkable longevity as an imperial entity. At least since the beginning of the eighteenth century, "Russia" has been a permanent geopolitical fixture on Europe's northeastern margins with its persistent pretense to the status of a great power. Against this backdrop, the book's three sections investigate (a) the emergence and development of Eurasianism as a form of (post-)imperial ideology, (b) the crucial role Ukraine has historically played for the Russians' self- understanding, and (c) contemporary Russian elites' exercises in historical legitimation.
Ukraine drew significant media attention after the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity and the subsequent undeclared war waged by Russia. However, the nature of these events and their impact on the ...social, economic, and political development of this country remain understudied and hence often misunderstood. Building Ukraine from Within offers an inside look at the recent developments in Ukraine and poses the question of whether transition from externally to internally driven development is possible in this case. Anton Oleinik argues that Ukraine is currently going through a revolutionary period aimed at building a nation-state and its aftermath. Ukraine is a latecomer in this process, especially compared with most other European countries. Its outcomes cannot be predicted with certainty. It is yet to be seen if a current surge in volunteerism and bottom-up civic initiatives will lead to the emergence of a viable and sustainable national democratic system in this country.
In 1991 there were more than 1,000 'Americanists' - experts in US history and politics - working in the Soviet Union. The Americanist community played a vital role in the Cold War, as well as in ...large part directing the cultural consumption of Soviet society and shaping perceptions of the US.
The role of Western NGOs in the transition of postcommunist nations to democracy has been well documented. In this study, Paulina Pospieszna follows a different trajectory, examining the role of a ...former aid recipient (Poland), newly democratic itself, and its efforts to aid democratic transitions in the neighboring states of Belarus and Ukraine.
Autori u radu analiziraju uzroke i ciljeve ruske agresije na Ukrajinu. Kao teorijsko-konceptualni okviri koriste se realistički strateški racionalizam i socijalno konstruirana strateška kultura. ...Primijenjena istraživačka metoda jest kritička analiza diskursa. U ovom radu najvažniji element (sigurnosnog) diskursa kao društvene prakse jest njegova uloga u konstrukciji značenja, odnosno značenja koje Rusija i ruski establišment pridaju rusko-ukrajinskim odnosima, ukrajinskoj naciji i neovisnoj ukrajinskoj državi te položaju Ukrajine u odnosu na euroatlantske integracije i odnose Rusije i Zapada u relaciji s ukrajinskim nastojanjima k euroatlantskom integriranju. Kao primarna jedinica analize poslužili su govori (Putin, 2005, 2007, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2022) i esej (Putin, 2021) ruskog predsjednika Vladimira Putina u razdoblju od 2005. do 2022., da bi zatim bili korišteni i relevantni znanstveni doprinosi u ulozi sekundarne građe. Sumarna analiza diskursa u konstrukciji značenja ukupnosti rusko-ukrajinskih odnosa u obrazloženju ruske invazije na Ukrajinu upućuje na pokušaje njezina opravdanja na sigurnosnoj, (geo)političkoj, strateškoj, pravnoj, gospodarskoj, mitsko-religijskoj, sociokulturnoj i filozofsko-moralnoj razini. No odgovor u razlozima ruske agresije na Ukrajinu ne pronalazi se dominantno u okvirima (realističkog) strateškog racionalizma, nego socijalno konstruirane strateške kulture.
Development and Dystopia Minakov, Mikhail; Umland, Andreas; Etkind, Alexander
2018, 20180330, 2018-03-27, Letnik:
179
eBook
This book dissects—from both philosophical and empirical viewpoints—the peculiar developmental challenges, geopolitical contexts, and dystopic stalemates that post-Soviet societies face during their ...transition to new political and cultural orders. The principal geographical focus of the essays is Ukraine, but most of the assembled texts are also relevant and/or refer to other post-Soviet countries.Mikhail Minakov describes how former Soviet nations are trying to reinvent, for their particular circumstances, democracy and capitalism while concurrently dealing with new poverty and inequality, facing unusual degrees of freedom and responsibility for their own future, coming to terms with complicated collective memories and individual pasts. Finally, the book puts forward novel perspectives on how Western and post- communist Europe may be able to create a sustainable pan-European common space. These include a new agenda for pan-European political communication, new East-Central European regional security mechanisms, a solution for the chain of separatist-controlled populations, and anti-patronalist institutions in East European countries.
