{"title":"Sowjetische Kulturdiplomatie in Osteuropa in der Nachkriegszeit: Ein Überblick über die neuesten Veröffentlichungen. Overview of the Most Recent Publications","authors":"Oksana Sergeevna Nagornaia, O. Nikonova","doi":"10.25162/JGO-2018-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/JGO-2018-0011","url":null,"abstract":"This article attempts to analyze and evaluate the achievements of research on cultural diplomacy in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the last years. The present review does not claim to a complete coverage of recent literature but concentrates on characterizing the basic tendencies and conceptual innovations in the chosen field of study. Our analysis allows to identify several current tendencies. Thus, historians are expanding their understanding of cultural diplomacy and integrating new objects of research. One of the most important trends is the study of agency within cultural diplomacy, e. g. of private-state networks or individual and collective actors of cultural diplomacy with their dynamically changing motivations and complicated interdependence with party-state structures and their own cultural practices. These were communicated by the transnational networks and at the same time kept very stable. The analysis of the phenomenon of cultural diplomacy was extended to intercultural communication in the realm of consumer and mass culture and the media landscape. This landscape was transforming in the post-war period and offered new possibilities to communicate cultural messages and to create new channels for cultural transfer. One of the achievements of recent scholarly research on the subject can certainly be seen in the acknowledgment of the paradigm of plural modernity which expands the conventional frames of the “bipolar system” allegedly shaped by the insurmountable discrepancies between capitalism and socialism and allows to approach the world order of the Cold War in a more balanced and diverse way emphasizing not only antagonisms but also similarities. Socialist cultures in a national ‘cover’ contradicting ideology and speaking the language of Enlightenment find a place in this paradigm, as do fragmented identities. Therefore the study of Soviet cultural diplomacy in Eastern Europe contributes to the recent interdisciplinary discussion on pluralistic modernity, to the cultural diversity of the Cold War, to the dynamics of global trends within consumer culture, and to media and transnational communication in general. In the future, it would be desirable to see more studies that define the criteria of the efficiency of cultural diplomacy more precisely and formulate descriptive models and scenarios of cultural diplomacy for individual regions and countries. New topics will complement this so far only fragmentarily analyzed research landscape.","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"38 5","pages":"274-298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.25162/JGO-2018-0011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72410219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"„Den russischen Volkscharakter kennzeichnet eine ausgesprochene Indolenz …“: Die Russlandbilder deutscher Generalstabsoffiziere vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. German General Staff Officers and their images of Russia before World War One","authors":"Lukas Grawe","doi":"10.25162/JGO-2018-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/JGO-2018-0018","url":null,"abstract":"In current historiography, the German General Staff with its responsibility for war planning and military intelligence is usually playing a key role in the emergence of World War One. Surprisingly, no recent study focuses the military agency’s perceptions of Russia and the Russian people, although these notions build an important part of the bilateral relationship between the Russian and the German Empire. This study shows that the views of certain leading General Staff officers about Russia were based for the most part on long-standing Russophobe resentments felt by the German bourgeoisie. Most of the German General Staff members thought of their eastern neighbor as a vast and hostile country with a barbaric and despotic government, while the Russian people were seen as dumb and lazy, frugal and naive. In addition, German perceptions were characterized by a sort of flamboyant ambiguity, with contempt and disdain going hand in hand with fear of Russia’s irresistible demographic economic and military growth. Together with underestimation of the Russian national character, especially those fearful German perceptions were an important factor in the German military leadership’s decision to go to war in July 1914.","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"70 1","pages":"588-619"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74778995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nuclear Technopolitics in the Soviet Union and Beyond – An Introduction","authors":"Julia Richers, F. Lüscher, Stefan Guth","doi":"10.25162/JGO-2018-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/JGO-2018-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Nuclear energy epitomises the ambiguity of high modernity like no other technology. In the history of the Soviet Union, it played an exceptionally prominent role, initially accelerating its ascent to superpower status and bolstering its visions of the future, but eventually hastening its demise in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. There can be little doubt that without nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union would not have been able to consolidate its hard-won victory in World War II and to achieve superpower status. In a massive effort that combined domestic research in nuclear physics with the knowledge of captive German scientists and intelligence about the American Manhattan project and drew on the resources of the country’s military-industrial complex and the Gulag system, the Soviet Union developed its own atomic bomb in record time and tested its first nuclear device in 1949. By 1953, it was also in possession of the hydrogen bomb and had thus achieved technological parity with the United States.1 In fact, with the successful test of the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile in 1957, the Soviet Union had taken the lead in developing a powerful launch vehicle to deliver thermonuclear warheads across the globe. No less important – in ideological terms even more so than in economic ones – was the Soviet Union’s civilian nuclear programme. Soviet atomic scientists advocated harnessing the atom’s power for electricity generation as early as the late 1940s,2 and the CPSU was quick to realise the economic and propagandistic potential of nuclear power.3 Only one year after the detonation of their first H-bomb, and in response to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace speech, Soviet nuclear scientists connected the world’s first nuclear power plant to the grid in Obninsk near Moscow. While the quantity of energy produced was negligible, the amount of publicity it generated for the Soviet state was enormous.4 Soviet propaganda could now juxtapose the belligerent capitalist atom of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with its seemingly peaceful socialist twin, eager to serve the","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"72 1","pages":"3-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85877653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Maiak 1957 and its Aftermath: Radiation Knowledge and Ignorance in the Soviet Union","authors":"Laura Sembritzki","doi":"10.25162/JGO-2018-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/JGO-2018-0003","url":null,"abstract":"As the Soviet Union entered into the era of nuclear modernity, the need for a public health response to the dangers associated with nuclear technologies became increasingly salient. Based on published sources and literature and on hitherto not exploited archival documents, this article undertakes a historical analysis of the institutionalization and the regulation of Soviet radiation safety and the development of scientific infrastructures of radiation knowledge production. Specialized research institutes were founded in response to the environmental contamination in the vicinity of military nuclear sites in the Urals, in particular Cheliabinsk-40. However, both the evolving research field of radiation hygiene and the Radiological Groups, introduced in 1958 to enforce radiation safety, were characterized by notorious deficiencies. To mitigate the lack of trained specialists within the Radiological Groups, specialized education and training institutions were established. Despite insufficient equipment and training, the period of the late 1950s and 1960s in the Soviet Union is one in which a more scientific approach to defining the dangers of the atom prevailed over the initial naive use of nuclear energy. However, the requirements of radiation safety were often at odds with the ubiquitous and deeply entrenched regime of secrecy concerning all forms of radiation knowledge production. This resulted in withholding research in a way that became most obvious during the Chernobyl catastrophe.","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"85 1","pages":"45-64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85858921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Soviet Federalism at Work: Lessons from the History of the Transcaucasian Federation, 1922–1936","authors":"Étienne Peyrat","doi":"10.25162/jgo-2017-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/jgo-2017-0020","url":null,"abstract":"This paper starts from a discussion of a forgotten page of South-Caucasian history, the existence from 1920 to 1936 of a Transcaucasian Federation (ZSFSR) uniting Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, in order to reconsider two claims generally made about the Soviet regime. First, that the building blocs of the Soviet state were national republics, a fact that only consolidated after the Second World War. Second, that Soviet federalism was a mere Potemkin village camouflaging an exceedingly centralized state. The author argues that federalism was taken seriously because it provided Soviet leaders, notably in the initial period of the USSR, with original political and administrative tools, that allowed for a management of multina - tional societies and multilevel conflicts, and created structures of mutual control between Transcaucasian actors. This argument is made on the basis of numerous published and archival sources coming from the three Transcaucasian republics and Russia, as well as Euro - pean and Turkish diplomatic sources. Far from being a footnote in the history of the Soviet Union, the ZSFSR can indicate new paths for a wider reconsideration of the political uses of federalism in authoritarian regimes.","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45378066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pugačev-Bilder vor der Kanonisierung: Transnationale Deutungskämpfe in der Vormoderne","authors":"M. Griesse","doi":"10.25162/jgo-2017-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/jgo-2017-0004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69173822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Die Umdeutung von Razin und Pugačev in der Sowjetunion unter Lenin und Stalin","authors":"Dietmar Neutatz","doi":"10.25162/jgo-2017-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/jgo-2017-0007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69174416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Furchtsame Verachtung: Die Kosaken des Chmielnicki-Aufstands in den Augen des polnischen Adels","authors":"M. Faber","doi":"10.25162/jgo-2017-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/jgo-2017-0002","url":null,"abstract":"The Rebellion of the Zaporozhian Cossacks under the leadership of Bohdan Chmielnicki in the years 1648-1657 has ever since been the subject of various and conflicting interpretations in the historical traditions of Ukrainians, Poles, Russians and Jews. The present ar - ticle deals with one aspect of it, the view on the Cossacks of the Polish nobility, their principal enemies during the rebellion. The Cossacks wanted to get rid of noble rule in the Ukraine, while the Polish nobles despised them as peasants and a lower sort of human beings. But this view was contested when the Cossacks inflicted some severe defeats on the Polish forces. The nobles in their pamphlets and poems were eagerly looking for reasons why this could have happened, the most widespread among them being the idea that the morals among the nobles had degenerated. This could be seen as a temporary problem that could be solved by their own efforts. Consequently the successful defense of the fortress of Zbaraz against the siege of a great army of Cossacks and Tatars was enthusiastically greeted as proof for the restoration of the old and natural order. One can reasonably assume that there was never a real chance for the integration of the Cossacks into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and that the Treaty of Hadiach of 1658 had to fail because of the unwillingness on both sides to accept its terms.","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69174119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sten’ka Razin und die persische Prinzessin: Ursprünge und Wege einer Legende","authors":"Sergej Jur’evič Nekljudov","doi":"10.25162/jgo-2017-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/jgo-2017-0006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69174351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Orden für die Kollektivierung. Die Rolle von Auszeichnungen für den Aufstieg der Tscheka-Kommandeure in die neue sowjetische Elite in den 1930er Jahren","authors":"Andrej I. Savin","doi":"10.25162/jgo-2017-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25162/jgo-2017-0010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54097,"journal":{"name":"JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69174560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}