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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In postsocialist Ukraine, with privatization and the scaling back of the social safety net, it is primarily women who have been left as leaders of service-oriented NGOs and mutual aid associations, ...caring for the marginalized and destitute with little or no support from the Ukrainian state. Sarah D. Phillips follows 11 activists over the course of several years to document the unexpected effects that social activism has produced for women: increasing social inequality and "differentiation" in the form of new cultural criteria for productive citizenship and new definitions of the rights and needs of various categories of citizens.
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.
Les Kurbas - director, actor, playwright, filmmaker, and translator - was the first artist to introduce Shakespeare to the Ukrainian stage. Creating the foundations of Soviet Ukrainian theatre and ...cinema, he was also responsible for its avant-garde direction.Shakespeare in the Undiscovered Bournis the first book-length study in English of Kurbas's modernist productions of Shakespeare and the first book on Soviet Shakespeare productions in Ukraine in any language.
Situating Shakespeare within the ideological and cultural debates and conflicts of the early Soviet period, Irena Makaryk traces the trajectory of Shakespeare's and Kurbas's fortunes while also investigating the challenges that modernism posed to early Soviet ideology.
Ukraine's cultural history - still an undiscovered bourn - has frequently been submerged within a homogenized Soviet experience. The fall of the Soviet Union and the consequent opening up of many hitherto inaccessible archives has allowed a new probing of the master narratives created during that regime. Invoking contemporary debates about the cultural uses of Shakespeare (especially issues of canon, classic, and authority),Shakespeare in the Undiscovered Bournexamines the complexities of the Soviet encounter with Shakespeare. It thus makes an important contribution to the studies of theatre, cross-culturalism, modernism, and postcolonialism.
Ukraine and Europe Pavlyshyn, Marko; Brogi Bercoff, Giovanna
Ukraine and Europe,
2017, 20171130, 2017, 2017-11-29, 2017-11-30
eBook
Ukraine and Europe challenges the popular perception of Ukraine as a country torn between Europe and the east. Twenty-two scholars from Europe, North America, and Australia explore the complexities ...of Ukraine's relationship with Europe and its role the continent's historical and cultural development.
