Browse results
Abstract
This article investigates how the Bulgarian community of southern Moldova experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union. It questions why Moldova’s Bulgarian population refused offers from the Gagauz and Ukraine’s Bulgarian minority to join them in their quest for autonomy. The fact they chose not to is somewhat puzzling, as Moldova’s Bulgarian minority shared many of the same grievances as the Gagauz and Ukrainian Bulgarians, and they were offered considerable concessions to join each movement. I argue that there were several reasons for this. Firstly, Bulgarians in Taraclia distrusted the Gagauz and Ukrainian Bulgarians. Secondly, local political elites quickly realised they could extract greater concessions from Chișinău by aligning with the central government during such a tumultuous period. Finally, relations between Taraclia and Chișinău were characterized by a high degree of pragmatism.
Abstract
The article discusses the organization and process of repatriation of American prisoners of war and interned civilians liberated from German captivity by the Red Army. It presents legal grounds of repatriation, the adopted principles of arranging the repatriation process, the territorial network of komendanturas and camps where the liberated citizens were kept, the living, medical and sanitary conditions in the mentioned units, the evacuation routes, the means of transport, the number of the repatriated, the rules of the work of teams of contact officers. A detailed analysis of the above-mentioned issues reveals the complicated and tense relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the final years of World War II. It also perfectly illustrates the attitude of the USSR towards the American ally, which was characterized by failure to follow agreements, disregarding the requests and petitions from US representatives, and delaying a lot of shared actions.
Abstract
The manuscript draws on archives, memoirs, and other sources to show the impact of changes in Soviet state policy between 1917 and 1991 on one type of religious activity in one part of the country, namely: pilgrimages by Orthodox believers to outdoor holy sites located in and around Moscow. It uses the history of a bronze statue of Christ to illustrate changes in the Soviet government’s methods and policies toward pilgrimage.
Abstract
Andrew Eiva, an ardently anti-Soviet, right-wing lobbyist in Washington DC during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s and the final stages of Soviet Lithuania in the early 1990s, was a true believer, a pro-US Cold War crusader. A clear example of an ethnic anti-communist, Eiva’s goal was to free Lithuania from Russian-imposed communist control, and he saw the Soviet-Afghan War as a means to that end. Andrew Eiva represents a strand of thinking (and acting) within US foreign policy circles at odds with (to the right of) official policy, presaging the tensions between the political right in the US and the CIA (especially) and other governmental organizations in recent years. Based on material Eiva wrote as a lobbyist, Western media accounts, and clandestine reports about him in the files of the Lithuanian KGB, this article shows that his ideologically driven lobbying efforts affected foreign policymaking in the US in the last decade of the Cold War as well as how his actions were reported and perceived in the USSR (within the KGB machinery).
Abstract
The article focuses on the role of Western goods and cultural influences in the Estonian SSR during late socialism, aiming to analyze “conspicuous” consumption practices, behaviors, and attitudes. Situated in the context of Soviet modernization and the economy of shortages, the article moves beyond the dominant discourse of scarcity and contributes to a growing body of literature that has uncovered the Soviet consumer as a modern shopper with distinctive tastes, demands, and sensibilities that were formed at the interplay between the socialist “good taste” and the imagined, yet incredibly tangible manifestations of Western material objects. The article argues that younger, urban, and largely female consumers in Soviet Estonia were susceptible to the enticement of materiality and status-oriented consumption that could be explained by the rise of “new” Soviet consumer’s consciousness, Western-imitating do-it-yourself practices, and acquisition of Western goods that were regarded as a sign of knowledge, prestige, and social standing.
Abstract
February 24, 2022, after several months of preparation, Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine. For the EU and NATO states, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine means, inter alia, a major change for their security. But Russia’s war against Ukraine has been going on since 2014. In reaction, the EU, the US, and other Western states imposed economic sanctions on Russia in 2014.
The subject of research is primarily comprehensive (general) sanctions. Another type of economic sanctions—targeted (smart) sanctions—are relatively new, so there is also relatively little research devoted to them. The main purpose of the article is to investigate the impact of smart (targeted) sanctions on five banks: Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Vnesheconombank (VEB), Rosselkhozbank, and three oil companies: Rosneft, Transneft and Gazpromneft. The study has been conducted on the basis of the analysis of the basic indicators illustrating the financial situation and changes in the prices of shares listed on the Moscow Exchange. The main finding is that the effects of sanctions are relatively weak and limited in time; in 2015–2017, a deterioration in the financial situation of only some of the eight corporations surveyed was noticeable, but later their situation improved significantly and in 2018–2019 it was clearly better than before the sanctions were imposed.
Abstract
In Prague, secular natural law had been discussed already before the reforms of Maria Theresia. Even before it was imposed from above, Nicolas Ignaz Königsmann and several others university professors discussed Grotius, Pufendorf and other more modern authorities out of interest. The reforms of Maria Theresia after 1748 introduced a chair of natural law, but its survival was threatened by short-sighted staffing policies. The competition for the new professorship in 1758 secured a new incumbent and provided for the division of the discipline between a specialized chair of public law, held by Franz Lothar Schrodt, and a chair of natural law, held by Josef Anton Schuster. It also helped to silence the Jesuit teacher in Philosophy Josef Jurain who sought to compete with the Faculty of Law. The 1760s then saw a series of new works on natural law by the new professors. Archival material (in part newly discovered) documents the competition of 1758. Analysis of the printed publications shows the type of natural law ideas advanced, including Schrodt’s strongly absolutist conception of public law, and their relationship to major Protestant authors.