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Forms and Varieties
Series:
Balkan Studies Library
This innovative book explores the complexities and levels of resistance amongst the populations of Southeastern Europe during the Second World War. It provides a comparative and transnational approach to the histories of different resistance movements in the region, examining the factors that contributed to their emergence and development, their military and political strategies, and the varieties of armed and unarmed resistance in the region. The authors discuss ethical choices, survival strategies, and connections across resistance movements and groups throughout Southeastern Europe. The aim is to show that to properly understand anti-Axis resistance in the region during the Second World War historians must think beyond conventional and traditional national histories that have tended to dominate studies of resistance in the region. And they must also think of anti-Axis resitance as encompassing more than just military forms. The authors are mainly scholars based in the regions in question, many of whom are presenting their original research for the first time to an English language readership. The book includes contributions dealing with Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.
The Shipyard Strikes in Poland and the Birth of Solidarność in August 1980
Series:
FOKUS, Volume: 9
"Rebellion" is the multi-threaded, fascinating story about a rebellion that changed Poland. It begins when the authorities promised a better life after the bloody suppression of the strike in December 1970. The availability of goods increased, the world seemed closer. Yet rebellion had come. This book provides the reader for the first time with the full story of the Great Strike of August 1980, the center of which was located in the Gdańsk Shipyard. The same slogans and demands, however, were made by protesters in Szczecin, Elbląg, Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Silesia and dozens of other places across Poland. The eyes of the world were on Gdańsk, and the agreement signed in the light of the cameras, in which the communist authorities were forced to make concessions, was celebrated by Poles all over the country. From the very beginning, the strike demands were not only a fight for bread, but also a fight for the dignity of the worker. However, the most important thing was the creation of a new community. The authorities had to either yield or call for help from foreign troops and chose a compromise. Many days of negotiations with the strikers resulted in an agreement that started a new chapter in Polish history.
NS-Zwangsarbeit aus sowjetischer Perpektive. Ein Beitrag zur Oral History
Series:
FOKUS, Volume: 8
60 Jahre nach Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges beantworten ehemalige sowjetische NS-Zwangsarbeiterinnen und Zwangsarbeiter Fragen zu ihrem erschütternden Schicksal einer doppelten Unrechtserfahrung: schuldlos schuldig unter den Nazis, dann unter den Sowjets. Die Analyse nähert sich aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven diesen einzigartigen Interviews. So wird ersichtlich, wie der diskursive Hintergrund von 60 Jahren Geschichtspolitik die Erinnerungen der „Ostarbeiter“ prägte. Der Genderaspekt stellt besonders die Erfahrungen der Frauen heraus. Es geht aber auch um Emotionen und körperliche Erinnerung. Und zuletzt wird nach den Ressourcen gefragt, die diese Menschen durchhalten ließ. „Stigma und Schweigen“ – der Titel verweist dabei auf ein zentrales Ergebnis der Studie, das eine erschreckende Kontinuität von Sowjetzeiten bis ins heutige Russland aufzeigt.
Regional Perspectives in Global Context
Disciplinary and interdisciplinary research on all aspects of Central and Eastern Europe: history, society, politics, economy, religion, culture, literature, languages and gender, with a focus on the region between the Baltic and the Adriatic in local and global context.
Until Volume 9, the series was published by Brill, click here.
Until Volume 9, the series was published by Brill, click here.
Abstract
The article deals with the evolution of Gorbachev’s thinking on the national question during perestroika, providing additional empirical proof to the existing literature on the subject. It looks at why Gorbachev did not consider the national question a priority initially and how he approached nationalist mobilization and interethnic conflicts throughout his period in office. Prominent scholars agree that Gorbachev was blind in managing the national question. The article argues that, while Gorbachev could not elaborate a compelling nationalities policy, his approach did not fundamentally differ from the one he adopted in other policy spheres. Besides, the article shows how his position on the Baltic states and Ukraine led to growing disagreements with some of his key advisors. Also, it stresses the dilemmas Gorbachev had to cope with when dealing with the national question, which he could have hardly solved with single solutions or a new conception of nationalities policy. The article builds on declassified material, Gorbachev’s speeches, notes of the Politburo meetings, and memoirs of former Soviet politicians.
In:
Russian History
Abstract
Gorbachev’s 1997 television ad for Pizza Hut, which opened its first restaurants in the Soviet Union in 1990 through a joint venture between parent company PepsiCo, Inc. and the Moscow city soviet, is an important part of his popular image in the West, reflecting the role that capitalist consumerism is often presumed to have played in the Soviet system’s collapse. Yet, as this article shows, such joint ventures were supposed to increase the Soviet Union’s role not as a consumer, but as a producer, by showcasing the benefits of international economic cooperation with it. Joint ventures won Gorbachev powerful allies, including the CEO of Pepsi, Donald H. Kendall, who advocated for removing American trade restrictions that stood in the way of the Soviet Union assuming a larger function in world trade. As Gorbachev’s economic reforms began to fail, however, the long line in front of Pizza Hut also came to symbolize communism’s failure to deliver prosperity. Gorbachev used the difficulties of foreign companies like Pizza Hut as proof of why the Soviet Union should be given Western aid, to no avail. Ultimately, the policy of joint ventures was a failure and Pizza Hut’s presence in the post-Soviet Russian market was short lived: it left during the 1998 ruble crisis only to return under Putin in the early 2000s, only to leave once again after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In:
Russian History
Abstract
This paper focusses on the use of the sacred space of monasteries for the punishment of criminals and their simultaneous spiritual purification. The uniqueness and therefore special heuristic value of study into this phenomenon is determined by the following circumstances. The ritual of tonsure has long been used by rulers to punish undesirable and dangerous individuals and remove them from proximity to the throne. However, the “honor” of such a manifestation of royal anger was only awarded to those belonging to the tsar’s inner circle, and disgraced courtiers did not find themselves locked behind monastic walls for the sake of their internal spiritual correction, but solely in order to isolate them. During the reign of Catherine II, the Empress’s own initiative saw a marked increase in the practice of penance in monasteries as punishment for serious crimes. It is noteworthy that such sentences first appeared in Catherine’s written confirmations of sentences, after which they began to be widely utilized by the secular courts. The conclusions of this work are based on royal confirmations of death sentences passed by the Senate, the archives of the local chancelleries, and reports submitted by the abbots of monastic foundations. These materials enable us to draw preliminary conclusions regarding the gradual humanization of punishments in Russia in the second half of the 18th century and the growing use of ecclesiastical practices in court sentences, all at a time in which the scope of spiritual jurisdiction was being reduced.
In:
Russian History
Abstract
This paper argues that to understand Gorbachev’s early policy choices, one must place them into the political context of late-Soviet politics. Gorbachev and his coalition came to power seeking not to replace the previous era’s economic policy priorities but to fulfill them. Their program derived from a belief in the priority of new technology to Soviet growth and the role of the ossified socio-economic system from incorporating innovations into production. As such, Gorbachev’s early actions – including a now derided drive to discipline labor and boost investment into new capital – were the core of his agenda to rapidly reconstruct the socio-economic system. This narrative pushes against characterizations of Gorbachev and his allies as figures who knew better but were stymied by powerful entrenched interests.
In:
Russian History
Abstract
The essay describes the anti-Stalinist tradition as a source of reformist thinking in the USSR and the policies of Nikita Khrushchev as precedents for Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms. It identifies promoters of reform within the Communist Party, among dissidents, and among their foreign supporters. It claims that those who supported Gorbachev were fewer and less influential than it appeared at the time, and that their ideas for economic reform were less developed and coherent than those for democratization and foreign policy. The essay describes the New Economic Policy of the early 1920s advocated by Nikolai Bukharin as an example of what at the time seemed to serve as a precedent for Gorbachev’s reforms, but had little actual impact. The essay discusses how opponents of Gorbachev’s reforms at home and abroad sought to undermine his initiatives. It considers the role of the United States in bringing the Gorbachev Moment to an end, by highlighting US rejection of Gorbachev’s vision of a nuclear-free, demilitarized world; insistence on promoting “shock therapy” for the Russian economy and support for Boris Yeltsin’s antidemocratic means of doing so; and policies that undermined democratic opposition to Yeltsin, even as his brutal war against Chechnya helped set a precedent for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
In:
Russian History