Browse results
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
The history of communist crimes in the USSR has been well elucidated. Nonetheless, a still under-investigated group of archival materials are files of the Soviet counterintelligence. One of its tasks was the surveillance of the foreign diplomats and consular representatives operating on the territory of the USRR. Even after the fall of the USSR and the opening of the archives, access to the materials of the communist special services was and is very difficult. The situation changed not very long ago. Open access to materials of the former GPU/NKVD/KGB was possible in Ukraine. In the Branch State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv is a file continuing materials from the surveillance by the Soviet counterintelligence of the Polish diplomat Jan Karszo-Siedlewski, who was among others the head of the Polish consulates general in Kharkiv and Kyiv in 1932–1937. In this way, material that had been entirely inaccessible for researchers will be discussed in the present article.
Abstract
This essay examines the life and career of famed Russian geologist, geographer, and academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences V. A. Obruchev. By emphasizing Obruchev’s commitment to popular enlightenment within and beyond his scientific disciplines, a clearer portrait of Obruchev’s lasting influence in Soviet science and literature emerges. Over the course of his career, Obruchev devised an original model of public science, one that renegotiated the traditional boundaries between science fiction, popular science, and academic discourse. As a result, Obruchev’s scientific research granted form and function to his popular fiction and his fiction, in turn, provided a space to explore the possibilities of scientific hypotheses and promote the active research of the scientific phenomena Obruchev considered significant. By the time of Obruchev’s death in 1956, other natural scientists, especially geoscientists, and science fiction authors had coopted Obruchev’s approach to popular enlightenment, cementing his legacy.
Abstract
The article focuses on Aleksei Mikhailovich Kremkov (1898-1948), graduate of the St. Petersburg Naval Corps, who received his military education—and baptism of fire—during the First World War and Civil War, and who, in emigration, worked as caricaturist in France and USA under the pseudonym Alex Gard. Gard collaborated with The New York Herald Tribune and many other serials, his cartoons graced the walls of the prestigious Sardi’s Restaurant in New York, and he published several albums of caricatures (including skits on military service, the Russian ballet, and the cream of America’s theater and cinema bohemia in the 1930s and 1940s). True, his cartoons brought tears to many an eye, but they also inspired people to understand themselves better and even to bolster self-confidence. Little has been written about Gard and biographical data are often contradictory. This article publishes vintage photographs and inscriptions, including a drawing from the collection of the author, whose great-uncle—the Russian ballet dancer in exile—Dimitri Rostoff (D.N. Kulchitsky), was one of Gard’s closest friends.