The genesis of hard carbonate nodules in the lowermost horizons (180–200 cm) of arable soils in the southern part of the forest‐steppe region of the Central Russian Upland was associated with a ...change in soil water regime. The conversion of forest to arable lands was studied in three agro‐chronosequences located on flat interfluves and consisted of undisturbed soils under deciduous forests and arable soils with different durations of agricultural use. Due to arable agricultural activity, the upper soil horizons become drier in the summer during the growing season, whereas the lowermost parts get wetter in the spring and autumn after harvests. As a result, two types of hard carbonate nodules, which differed in morphology, origin and age, formed in the arable soils. The first type of hard nodules had a dense cryptocrystalline fabric in thin sections and colloform morphology viewed under an electron microscope, consisting of calcite with Si, Al and Fe peaks in EDS spectra, and had a 14C‐age from 16,410 ± 200 to 13,570 ± 150 years BP. Their formation occurred due to an ascending of “old” carbonate matter in colloidal suspensions through capillary pores from parent rocks in the periods of strong heating of the soil surface; these nodules had an evaporative origin. The second type of hard nodules consisted of crystalline pure calcite and had a 14C‐age of < 4,500 years BP. They had a hydromorphic genesis and developed in periods of water stagnation in the deep horizons and can be considered to be markers of a seasonal hydromorphism of arable soils in the studied area.
Highlights
The conversion of forest to arable lands resulted in a change of soil water regime followed by the formation of two types of hard nodules
The uplifting of calcite colloidal solutions/suspensions from parent material enriched newly formed hard nodules with “old” 14C
The seasonal stagnant water in the lowermost soil horizons caused hard nodule recrystallization and rejuvenation by “young” 14C from organic acids and atmospheric CO2.
Described by the sixteenth-century English poet George Turbervile as "a people passing rude, to vices vile inclin’d", the Russians waited some three centuries before their subsequent cultural ...achievements—in music, art and particularly literature—achieved widespread recognition in Britain. The essays in this stimulating collection attest to the scope and variety of Russia’s influence on British culture. They move from the early nineteenth century—when Byron sent his hero Don Juan to meet Catherine the Great, and an English critic sought to come to terms with the challenge of Pushkin—to a series of Russian-themed exhibitions at venues including the Crystal Palace and Earls Court. The collection looks at British encounters with Russian music, the absorption with Dostoevskii and Chekhov, and finishes by shedding light on Britain’s engagement with Soviet film. Edited by Anthony Cross, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Anglo-Russian relations, A People Passing Rude is essential reading for anyone with an interest in British and Russian cultures and their complex relationship.
The first generation of Russian modernists experienced a profound sense of anxiety resulting from the belief that they were living in an age of decline. What made them unique was their utopian ...prescription for overcoming the inevitability of decline and death both by metaphysical and physical means. They intertwined their mystical erotic discourse with European degeneration theory and its obsession with the destabilization of gender. In Erotic Utopia , Olga Matich suggests that same-sex desire underlay their most radical utopian proposal of abolishing the traditional procreative family in favor of erotically induced abstinence.   2006 Winner, CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Titles, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries   Honorable Mention, Aldo and Jean Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Modern Language Association “Offers a fresh perspective and a wealth of new information on early Russian modernism. . . . It is required reading for anyone interested in fin-de-siècle Russia and in the history of sexuality in general.”—Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Slavic and East European Journal “Thoroughly entertaining.”—Avril Pyman, Slavic Review
The micro- and macromorphological studies performed on the loess-soil sequences in the south of the East European Plain permitted to identify and describe the type of soil-formation processes that ...took part in the development of interstadial and interglacial paleosols. Four paleosol complexes are distinctly identified within the limits of the studied region: Vorona (MIS 13/15), Inzhavino (MIS 8/9 or MIS 10/11), Kamenka (MIS 6/7 or MIS 8/9), Mezin (MIS 5); besides, there are the Bryansk interstadial paleosol (MIS 3) and Rzhaksa interglacial paleosol (MIS 17), both well identifiable in the region. The results obtained are in general agreement with the earlier conclusions by Velichko et al. (2012) about a general reduction of heat and moisture supply and an increase in aridity from the earlier towards later stages of the Pleistocene. The new data revealed, however, a few differences from the earlier concept. To mention but one example, we have found that the Kamenka interglacial (MIS 7 or MIS 9) paleosols formed in environments more humid than those of the Likhvin interglacial (MIS 9 or MIS 11).
•Paleosols are classified according to their macro- and micromorphological characteristics.•For the first time Pleistocene paleosols are classified according to WRB 2014 (2015).•During MIS 7 (9) the climate of the region was found to be humid than in the earlier epochs.
This book explores the mythology woven around the Soviet secret police and the Russian cult of state security that has emerged from it.
Tracing the history of this mythology from the Soviet period ...through to its revival in contemporary post-Soviet Russia, the volume argues that successive Russian regimes have sponsored a 'cult' of state security, whereby security organs are held up as something to be worshipped. The book approaches the history of this cult as an ongoing struggle to legitimise and sacralise the Russian state security apparatus, and to negotiate its violent and dramatic past. It explores the ways in which, during the Soviet period, this mythology sought to make the existence of the most radically intrusive and powerful secret police in history appear 'natural'. It also documents the contemporary post-Soviet re-emergence of the cult of state security, examining the ways in which elements of the old Soviet mythology have been revised and reclaimed as the cornerstone of a new state ideology.
The Russian cult of state security is of ongoing contemporary relevance, and is crucial for understanding not only the tragedies of Russia's twentieth-century history, but also the ambiguities of Russia's post-Soviet transition, and the current struggle to define Russia's national identity and future development. The book examines the ways in which contemporary Russian life continues to be shaped by the legacy of Soviet attitudes to state-society relations, as expressed in the reconstituted cult of state security. It investigates the shadow which the figure of the secret policeman continues to cast over Russia today.
The book will be of great interest to students of modern Russian history and politics, intelligence studies and security studies, as well as readers with an interest in the KGB and its successors.
The Global Climate Observing System and Global Terrestrial Observing Network have identified permafrost as an 'Essential Climate Variable,' for which ground temperature and active layer dynamics are ...key variables. This work presents long-term climate, and permafrost monitoring data at seven sites representative of diverse climatic and environmental conditions in the western Russian Arctic. The region of interest is experiencing some of the highest rates of permafrost degradation globally. Since 1970, mean annual air temperatures and precipitation have increased at rates from 0.05 to 0.07 °C yr−1 and 1 to 3 mm yr−1 respectively. In response to changing climate, all seven sites examined show evidence of rapid permafrost degradation. Mean annual ground temperatures increases from 0.03 to 0.06 °C yr−1 at 10-12 m depth were observed in continuous permafrost zone. The permafrost table at all sites has lowered, up to 8 m in the discontinuous permafrost zone. Three stages of permafrost degradation are characterized for the western Russian Arctic based on the observations reported.
Winner of the American Comparative Literature Association's Rene Wellek Prize (2004)
As one of the founding poets and editors of the Language School of poetry and one of its central theorists, ...Barrett Watten has consistently challenged the boundaries of literature and art. In The Constructivist Moment, he offers a series of theoretically informed and textually sensitive readings that advance a revisionist account of the avant-garde through the methodologies of cultural studies. His major topics include American modernist and postmodern poetics, Soviet constructivist and post-Soviet literature and art, Fordism and Detroit techno—each proposed as exemplary of the social construction of aesthetic and cultural forms. His book is a full-scale attempt to place the linguistic turn of critical theory and the self-reflexive foregrounding of language by the avant-garde since the Russian Formalists in relation to the cultural politics of postcolonial studies, feminism, and race theory. As such, it will provide a crucial revisionist perspective within modernist and avant-garde studies.
On the basis of a high-resolution chronostratigraphic framework of the Eastern Russian Platform, a comparison between Late Barremian–Aptian global and regional sea-level trends was performed. The ...detailed evaluation of the long-term (3rd order) Aptian sea-level cycle results in the recognition of sea-level and climate as controlling factors on depositional environments in the basin. The rising part of the Aptian sea-level cycle lasted from the Deshayesites tenuicostatusis Zone to the Deshayesites deshayesi Zone, and transgression is responsible for the local development of anoxia on the Eastern Russian Platform. The Lower Aptian bituminous shales and sheeted calcite concretions associated with the Eastern Russian Platform are interpreted as being a regional manifestation of Oceanic Anoxic Event OAE 1a. The Late Aptian “cold snap” that occurred during the Early Cretaceous greenhouse world coincided with a simultaneous global and regional sea-level lowstand, peak shallowing of the basin, and the almost complete absence of sediments due to subaerial exposure in the studied region. The global distribution of the lowstand gives clear evidence for sea-level fluctuations, and intrinsic climate control on sequences in the study area.
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•A Barremian–Aptian regional sea-level curve is presented.•The investigation of the 3rd order Aptian sea-level cycle is produced.•“The cold snap” is identified in the Late Aptian sedimentary sequences.•The sea level rise episode is responsible for local development of the early Aptian anoxic basin.
The study of Russian is of great importance to syntactic theory, due in particular to its unusual case system and its complex word order patterns. This book provides an essential guide to Russian ...syntax and examines the major syntactic structures of the language. It begins with an overview of verbal and nominal constituents, followed by major clause types, including null-copular and impersonal sentences, WH-questions and their distribution, and relative and subordinate clauses. The syntax behind the rich Russian morphological case system is then described in detail, with focus on both the fairly standard instances of Nominative, Accusative and Dative case as well as the important language-specific uses of the Genitive and Instrumental cases. The book goes on to analyze the syntax of 'free' word order for which Russian is famous. It will be of interest to researchers and students of syntactic theory, of Slavic linguistics and of language typology.
We present new high-precision
40Ar/
39Ar ages on feldspar and biotite separates to establish the age, duration and extent of the larger Siberian Traps volcanic province. Samples include basalts and ...gabbros from Noril'sk, the Lower Tunguska area on the Siberian craton, the Taimyr Peninsula, the Kuznetsk Basin, Vorkuta in the Polar Urals, and from Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals. Most of the ages, except for those from Chelyabinsk, are indistinguishable from those found at Noril'sk. Cessation of activity at Noril'sk is constrained by a
40Ar/
39Ar age of 250.3
±
1.1 Ma for the uppermost Kumginsky Suite.
The new
40Ar/
39Ar data confirm that the bulk of Siberian volcanism occurred at 250 Ma during a period of less than 2 Ma, extending over an area of up to 5 million km
2. The resolution of the data allows us to confidently conclude that the main stage of volcanism either immediately predates, or is synchronous with, the end-Permian mass extinction, further strengthening an association between volcanism and the end-Permian crisis. A sanidine age of 249.25
±
0.14 Ma from Bed 28 tuff at the global section and stratotype at Meishan, China, allows us to bracket the P–Tr boundary to 0.58
±
0.21 myr, and enables a direct comparison between the
40Ar/
39Ar age of the Traps and the Permo–Triassic boundary section.
Younger ages (243 Ma) obtained for basalts from Chelyabinsk indicate that volcanism in at least the southern part of the province continued into the Triassic.
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