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This paper analyses the changes in ethnic self-identification of the population of Ukraine from the last (January 1989) Soviet census to the first (December 2001) Ukrainian census. It begins with a comparison of the census data and describes the remarkable changes observed. Given the incomplete nature of published data on international migrations and their differentiation by ethnic groups in the inter-census period, the paper applies a method to fill in the gaps and calculate net migration balances for each ethnic group. Also, since no data is available on the net reproductive rates for separate ethnic groups in Ukraine, it sets out a method to estimate net reproduction rates for Ukrainians and Russians in the inter-census period. Using these methods, it establishes that differences in net migration on the one hand and the differences in net reproduction on the other contributed 11.1 and 4.4 percent of the growth in the share of Ukrainians and 6.8 and 5.2 percent in the sizeable decline in the share of Russians. The remaining lion's share is a shift in identity among members of ethnically mixed (mainly Russian-Ukrainian) families. Mothers of ethnically mixed families, identifying the ethnicity of their newly born, contributed 11.4 percent to the Ukrainian gain and 9.2 percent to the Russian loss. The remaining 73.1 percent of the Ukrainian gain and 78.8 percent of Russian loss resulted from lifetime identity shift from Russian to Ukrainian, the most likely candidates being members of Russian-Ukrainian families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proceeds from the premise that Russian iurodivye—or fools for Christ—display a remarkable resemblance to the Hebrew prophets. As it explores the genealogical link between these two cultural paradigms, the paper shows that, during the various stages of the developmental history of holy foolery, the figure of the Old Testament prophet served as the holy fool's literary and behavioural model. The influence of the prophetic paradigm on the cultural phenomenology and hagiographic imagery of iurodstvo was exercised through the prominence assigned to the prophet in the written, visual and audible texts available to the Eastern Slays from the beginning of Christian era. On the literary level, this enduring influence is discernable in the prophetic topoi that reached holy foolish hagiography directly and indirectly. While the direct venues are confined to Old Testament texts, which described the lives and acts of the Hebrew prophets, the indirect ones include New Testament texts and hagiographies. When the holy fool finds his place in the urban setting, his paradigm undergoes crucial changes, losing its ascetic aspects and acquiring the prophetic ones. This shift of emphasis defines Russian hagiography and cultural tradition, where the iurodivyi often emerges as the Russian version of the Hebrew prophet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from the 1995 and 2000 World Values Survey to examine and compare the relationship between social capital, education and political participation in Western and Eastern Europe. The concept of social capital is measured using indicators of trust and membership in voluntary organizations, while the concept of political participation is put into operation through indicators of political action. The research uncovers clear indicators showing that social capital is a factor in political participation in Eastern Europe and that the existence of general social trust is a characteristic of the most successful transitions. The paper finds evidence to support the theory that a trust-building mechanism based on reciprocity and a "critical mass" is indeed at work in the democratization process and that social capital is an integral part of transition for the Eastern European states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the fiftieth volume of the periodical "Canadian Slavonic Papers". The author ackowledges all the editors and contributors of the issue referred to as a milestone, a testimonial piece that depicts the periodical's contribution in history, language, literature, and social sciences in Canada and across the globe.

The article presents a bibliography of collections of articles and papers related to Slavonic studies which have been sent to the editors, but not reviewed due to scope limitations.

This article analyzes the popular response to Soviet myths in the post-Soviet period through the lens of the complicated treatment of Zoia Kosmodem'ianskaia. As arguably the most famous Soviet World War II martyr, Kosmodem'ianskaia's image splintered after glasnost' and has been located at the nexus of debate in various media since 1991. This paper poses questions about the fracturing of national memory when a nation has undergone upheaval: about the stability of heroes, about citizens' responses to them, and about heroes' transformation in the new regime. Catriona Kelly has demonstrated that the treatment of a national hero can illuminate the circumstances that produced the hero and the cultural climate of subsequent decades. Building on her work, this article asks "Why and how has the image of Kosmodem'ianskaia remained relevant while other Soviet heroes have been neglected since 1991?" This article posits that Kosmodem'ianskaia's continued significance lies above all in the flexibility of her image and the transitional aspects of her body. Her depictions in various contexts represent prominent responses to the authoritarian regime which gave birth to both Kosmodem'ianskaia and her legacy. The variety of her images demonstrates the continued relevance of this figure two decades after the collapse of the USSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called Bulldozer, Rose, Orange, and Tulip Revolutions have reminded us that as repressive as a regime may be, the real power ultimately belongs to the masses, especially when its forces are supported and channelled into non-violent action in pursuit of clear and concrete objectives. This article shows how the first of these events, the "Bulldozer Revolution," unfolded in Serbia resulting in the ouster of the dictator Milošević. The lessons were then absorbed by Georgian activists who were similarly successful in replacing Shevardnadze with Saakashvili. In Ukraine, the election of Kuchma's protégé, Yanukovych, was foiled when the "Orange Revolution" installed Yushchenko instead. The author also chronicles the "Tulip Revolution" of Kyrgyzstan. A notable feature of this paper is that, in addition to analyzing these "successful" revolutions, it also looks at some clearly unsuccessful ones, namely those attempted in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Belarus. But the current global economic crisis could lead to more political changes in the former Soviet Union, whether in Belarus, the Caucasus, Central Asia, or even Russia itself. The article argues that the "colour revolutions" of 2000-2005 present a real danger to the authoritarian regime of Medvedev-Putin in Russia, and that their fear of them is hence thoroughly justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the social meaning behind the use of both Ukrainian and Russian in various media texts in contemporary Ukraine. I begin by situating the language issue within the current socio-political context; specifically, I briefly summarize recent language debates relevant to this paper. Secondly, I analyze selected media texts from television programs, films and popular magazines—all instances of the simultaneous and parallel use of Ukrainian and Russian. The analysis is then extended to a discussion of the media's stake in framing the linguistic situation in Ukraine. The texts in question are approached on the premise that "media usage influences and represents people's use of and attitude towards language in a speech community" (Bell and Garrett 1998: 3). I consider the media's choice of language an institutionalized means of framing reality (Popp 2006: 6) and therefore the use of language in the media acts symbolically, creating prevalent ideas about what language can and should do in a particular society (Woolard and Schieffelin 1994, cited in Popp 2006: 5). My analysis of communicative exchange is carried out from the perspective of code-switching that takes place within a larger social and political context. I address the social dichotomy of "we/they" or what Gumperz (1972) calls "metaphorical code-switching." My analysis rests also on Auer's code-switching framework, specifically his notions of "preference-related switching" and "sustained divergence of language choices" (1998b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kosovo's education system is divided along a Serb-Albanian line, with consequences for the non-Serb minorities. While Serb-Albanian relations have been researched and analyzed extensively, relations among non-Serb minority communities have typically been neglected. Although there are some studies addressing the treatment and rights of individual minority groups in Kosovo, there is very little written on the dynamics and relations those groups establish among themselves. This article uses education as the backdrop for analyzing the emerging inter-minority relations in Kosovo. The paper provides some background about minority education rights and the consequences of their partial implementation for those minority groups—i.e., the Kosovo Bosniaks and Turks—whose members opt to follow the Albanian (Kosovo) educational system. In addition, it offers insights into some of the economic and political considerations behind the decision of the Gorani community to endorse the Serbian educational system. Finally, I analyze the relations between the Goranis and Bosniaks that have been developing around education and language rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arguably, few popular films during the last decade have caused so much debate, and been more frequently quoted as film The Matrix (1999), written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. This paper analyzes allusions to the film in four works of contemporary Russian prose fiction. These works exploit, to various degrees, The Matrix in order to evoke visual representations from the film, and to draw on structural concepts and similarities. Further, I argue that references to The Matrix are made in order to benefit from the film's eclectic mythological concepts and transpose them to the literary realm. This kind of cross-fertilization could be seen as a growing trend where the borders between different media are becoming more fluid, and where they benefit from each other, be they novels, films, or computer games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Russian, the statistically dominant order of the subject and the verb in the clause is SV. However, there are many environments in which VS orders also occur, not all of which have been noted in the scholarly literature. This paper outlines some models of Russian constituent order that have been put forward in both generative and functional frameworks, and it suggests how they may be modified to improve their adequacy. Its central claim is that an improved model of Russian clause organization would take the form (VS)Theme/(VS)Rheme. It offers analyses of a large set of data collected from literary and academic writing in support of its claim, in so doing presenting a more or less comprehensive overview of environments in which clauses containing post-verbal subjects are found in written Russian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics have noted similarities between Nikolai Gogol's three early horror stories (Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala [St. John's Eve], Strashnaia mest' [A Terrible Vengeance] Vii) and the works of his famous German predecessor Ludwig Tieck. There also exists some speculation concerning the relationship between his Ukrainian tales and the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann. However, a detailed comparison between the two authors focused only on Gogol's "St. Petersburg" stories. His early tales have been ignored because they were presumed to depend mostly on folklore. This article argues that there are intertextual connections between Gogol's St. John's Eve and A Terrible Vengeance, and Hoffmann's Der Sandmann [The Sandman] and Ignaz Denner. The paper contends that Gogol was recapitulating, consciously or unconsciously, Hoffmann's oeuvre in his works both in terms of plot detail and on a deeper psychological level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article lists the papers related to Ukrainian studies including the "Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics," edited by Sander Brouwer, "Die slavischen Grenzen Mitteleuropas. Festschrift für Sergio Bonazza," edited by Stefano Aloe, and "Kapitel aus der Poetik: Die zehner Jahre in der tschechischen Literatur – zwischen Symbolismus und Avantgarde. Beiträge zum Internationalen Bohemistischen Symposium an der Universität Potsdam," edited by Birgit Krehl and Herta Schmid.

This paper deals with J.B. Rudnyckyj (1910-1995), a leading Ukrainian émigré scholar of the Cold War period, and his manifold contributions to library science in Canada and the West in general. Although he was a philologist and lexicographer by training and profession, Rudnyckyj took a keen interest in all Ukrainian books and libraries to which he had access during this period. From his very immigration to Canada in 1949, he traveled extensively in this country, in the USA, and in Western Europe. Everywhere he went, he investigated local private Ukrainian, public, and academic libraries, museums, and cultural centres, met with resident scholars, both émigré and Western, and wrote about them in his voluminous publications. These included both travelogues with a strong cultural bent and also more formal library descriptions. For two decades he also compiled extensive yearly bibliographies of Slavic publications in Canada. Rudnyckyj's motivation, it seems, was a desire to document and preserve the Ukrainian cultural heritage which he thought was under threat in his ancestral European homeland. Today, all this material forms a valuable resource for the history of Slavic studies in Canada during the time of the "Long Cold War" (1945-1991). It also says much about Ukrainian culture in North America in general during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Russia, post-communist reforms to state social benefit policies have shown contradictory views of gender. On the one hand, reform showed a desire to promote gender equality between individuals, a view in which men and women alike were considered autonomous citizens. On the other hand, there was an impulse to consider women as a needy group dependent on special help from the state. This paper examines three related areas of policy: pronatalist policy, child welfare benefits, and old age pensions, in order to reveal unresolved issues in Russian social policies towards women and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sources cited in the journal "Canadian Slavonic Papers," are presented including "Bulgarien-Jahrbuch," vol. 2004-2005, edited by Wolfgang Gesemann, Rumjana Ivanova-Kiefer, and Rumjana Zlatanova, "Linguistische Beiträge zur Slavistick: XIII. JungslavistInnen-Treffen in Leipzig," by Uwe Junghans, and "Liguistische Beiträge Slavistick: XIV. JungslavistInnen-Treffen in Stuttgurt," by Ljudmila Geist and Grit Mehlhorn.

Scholarship on Radishchev has so far neglected his fascinating letters from exile (1791-1801), using it primarily as source material on the writer's biography or ideas, instead of analyzing it as a part of Radishchev's text. The present paper examines how the writer uses his letters to build his new public image, after it has been destroyed by his arrest and trial. But Radishchev also uses them to stage his intimate body, in order to arouse his addressees' interest and pity. Finally, he at times turns this real body into a rhetorical one, which fulfills different functions, from staging a fictitious intimacy in place of Radishchev's real one when it is not satisfactory, to serving as a symbolic gift for his protector Count Alexander Vorontsov. The study of this specific issue sheds a new light on the writer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out a case for identifying a Carpathian Sprachbund comprising Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Kajkavian Croatian, Hungarian, Yiddish and the Bavarian-Austrian dialect of German. It investigates the distribution of eleven possible Sprachbund-forming features: five phonological (absence of tones, initial stress, phonemic opposition of length in vowels, absence of a palatalization correlation, the presence of medial 1), six morpho-syntactical (a basic three-tense verbal system, an analytical future formed with an inchoative plus the infinitive, an original perfect as the only simple preterite, a pluperfect formed from a double perfect, a pre-posed definite and indefinite article). The information gathered comfortably satisfies the minimal conditions for establishing the existence of a Sprachbund set out by Sarah Grey Thomason, W.P. Schmid and others. The levels of participation of the individual languages also seem to be commensurable with those of the languages of the well known Balkan Sprachbundas set forth by Jouko Lindstedt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This presentation aims at addressing an apparent minor discrepancy between citations in Shevelov's A Prehistory of Slavic (1964) and his Historical Phonology of the Ukrainian Language (1979). Shevelov (1964: 403) cites Russian "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text", 'drake', also occurring in Ukrainian, and gives an Old Irish form selg, glossed as 'hunt', as a cognate. In Shevelov 1979: 94, however, Old Irish selg, unglossed, is offered as a cognate for Ukrainian "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text" 'spleen' id., and other related Slavic forms, see also Trautmann 1923: 256, Pokomy 1959: 900-901, 987, Vasmer 1964-1973: III: 594-595, while his comment on Russian "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text" cites no other cognates. For Old Irish seig itself; which, like "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text" and "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text" has two meanings, see Lewis & Pedersen 1961: 18, 33; Thumeysen 1946: 139, Vendryes 1974: S-80-S-81. Superficially, this would provide a very rare example of East Slavic *TolT reflexes developing to *Telel, and not the regular, and expected *ToloT, but such examples should be treated with caution, cf. Shevelov loc. cit. Indeed, a glance at proposed Indo- European cognates of "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text"/selg 'spleen' shows a degree of irregular development that points to a need for closer scrutiny by scholars, cf. Greek "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text", Avestan "Multiple line equation(s) cannot be represented in ASCII text", etc., raising the question: what has happened to the Slavic *-p-? In contrast to Celtic, Slavic preserves Indo-European *p under most circumstances, and therefore one would expect it to be preserved in any cognate of the Greek and Avestan forms cited above. By simply juxtaposing Old Irish seig here, without further comment, Shevebov bc. cit. introduces a note of confusion for those interested in Slavo-Celtic cognates, and it is the purpose of this paper to disentangle such confusion, and to account for a situation whereby Slavic and Goidelic appear to use the same forms for the concepts of 'duck'/'hunting' and 'spleen'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on questions of Macedonian standardization at the most micro-level, i.e., within the individual. Through examination of archival materials of Macedonian writers of the early twentieth century, questions of language shift and standardization are addressed. While much research has been conducted on the state processes of language standardizing, on access to the media in newly standardized linguistic codes, and on access to education, this work refocuses discussion of language standards on individual speakers and writers: how and why they shift their language to the emerging norm. Two writers from this period, Anton Kavaev and Radoslav Petkovski, serve as models and provide the first step in a larger study of processes of standardization in the early decades of the twentieth century leading to codification in mid-century. The written works of the authors under study demonstrate that language codification is not an act, nor a series of acts, but a process, a process that takes place within individual speakers who are committed to the project of language standardization while subject to external political and linguistic pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proceeding from Lord Acton's insight that "exile is the nursery of nationality," this paper examines a peculiar historical instance of dislocation as a relevant matrix for the articulation of national identity. I inquire into aspects of the elaboration of French national consciousness among French émigrés of the revolutionary period in Russia, approaching the subject at two levels: first, the maîtres à danser, the run-of- the- mill émigrés who abandon cosmopolitan certitudes or pretensions of a "monde français" and abstractions of dynastic loyalty, in favour of nostalgic attachment to a tangible paine, very much at odds with the Russian otherness into which they have been thrust. Second, the maîtres à penser, those émigré thinkers in whom the Revolution provokes a reconsideration of established universals and who conceptualize Russia in terms of a project to reconcile universal and particular or national values. I examine the dilemmas and ultimate failure of such a projection by focusing on the work of Joseph de Maistre. On both levels, the historical case studied here is an exemplification of the proposition that nationalism is founded on a disenchantment with the world, and that physical estrangement from both the world to which one believes oneself to belong as well as spiritual estrangement from the world in which one treads, may provide a critical context for defining collective identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliography of several books related to Slavic history is presented including "National Development in Romania and Southeastern Europe: Papers in Honor of Cornelia Bodea" edited by Paul E. Michelson and Kurt W. Treptow, "Perils of Pankratova: Some Stories From the Annals of Soviet Historiography" by Reginald E. Zelnik, and "Imperiology: From Empirical Knowledge to Discussing the Russian Empire" edited by Kimitaka Matsuzato.

A list of summaries of contents of various published collections of articles and papers is presented. They include "Iter philologicum. Festschrift fur Helmut Keipert zum 65. Geburtstag. Die Welt der Slaven-Sammelbande, Band 28," edited by Daniel Buncic and Nikolaos Trunte and "Slavistische Linguistik 2004/2005: Referate des XXX. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, Klagenfurt, 13.-17. September 2004, und Referate des XXXI. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, Freudenstadt, 19.-23. September 2005. Slavistische Beitrage, 453," edited by Tilman Berger, Jochen Raecke and Tilmann Reuther.

The article discusses ethnographic studies of Russia and Ukraine in the period from 1991 to 2011, after the fall of the Soviet Union, from an anthropological perspective. Topics include a discussion of the methodologies of the fields of ethnography and anthropology, and the role of the researcher in maintaining a conversation with the informant, or participant, while gathering research; the methodology and debates which came up as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, and its particular methodologies of gaining ethnographic information; and the primary themes that have arisen in research since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The article discusses historical scholarship of Ukraine since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, with reference to theory, methodology, and institutions. Topics include the emergence of the concept of the national paradigm in historiography, and challenges to this paradigm, with reference to modern and emerging Western discourse on historiographical theory; the development of Ukrainian historiography against the background of Soviet Ukrainian historiography, including large research institutes and university departments; and the development of new centers of scholarship as a result of cooperation with international groups and the Ukrainian diaspora.

The article discusses Russian literature and literary studies in the period between 1991 and 2011, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Topics include the position of writers in Russian society, against the background of government sponsored writers during the Soviet period; a discussion of possible reasons for the lack of official government censorship of literature, in contrast to the evident censorship of radio, television, and press in Russia; and recent trends and movements in Russian literature, including the popularity of prose fiction.

The article discusses the historiography of Russia developed in North America in the post-Soviet period. Topics include the generations of scholarship in Russian historiography and the connections between the generations, with scholarly biographies, as well as anomalies; a discussion of the Bolshevik overthrow of the Tzarist government in 1917 and the consequences of the October Revolution; and the development of historiography as a field within the North American scholarship on post Soviet Russia.

The article discusses the field of Slavic linguistics and its development in the period between 1991 and 2011, with reference to articles published in professional journals, conference programs, and doctoral theses. Topics include major trends in the field of Slavic linguistics, such as a wider definition of the field, and the relationship between this field and the field of general linguistics; and analysis and charts relating to publications in the field, and their areas of concentration within the field.

The article discusses scholarship on Ukrainian national cinema, in the context of the break up of the Soviet Union and the history of Soviet film. Topics include analysis of general histories of film in Ukraine, often based on previous works on general film in the Soviet Union; problems and gaps in the writing of Ukrainian film histories to date, and suggestions for frameworks and areas which might be useful in future writing on the history of Ukrainian cinema, including a revised concept of national cinema in the post Soviet period.

The article discusses the factors involved in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Topics include economic and national factors such as the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which ended in 1988 to 1989, the expense of dealing with the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and decentralization of the Soviet Union; international relations between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world, and discussion of the factors related to the rise of national republics, the coup d'état of August 19-21, 1991, and the struggle between Russian leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

The article presents an overview of literary scholarship in Ukraine from Ukrainian independence in 1991 to 2011. Topics include Ukrainian literary scholarship as a reflection of the Ukrainian trajectory toward its cultural and national goals, and a new international position; analysis of Ukrainian literary scholarship in the fields of literary historiography, theoretical frameworks, and bibliographies; and a discussion of the background of Ukrainian literary works and studies in the Soviet Period.

The article discusses the Post-Soviet period, with a focus on the scholarship of folklore. Topics include background on Russian folklore, Russian studies of folklore, and folklore during and after the Soviet Period; Soviet censorship of Russian collections of folklore, such as D.N. Sadovnikov's "Russian Riddles," Afanas'ev's "Russian Secret Tales," and Nikolai Onchukov's "Northern Tales;" and background on folklorists and folklore collections which have come to light in the Post-Soviet period and have been reprinted and become available in Russia.

The article discusses post Communist Russia, with a focus on the transition to democracy, and the framework of transit studies. Topics include the unexpected results of the transition out of Communism, the models of post Communist states in Latin America and Southern Europe as inadequate for describing the changes in Russia, the other countries of the Former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe; and the search for a framework outside of comparative politics to describe the transition in Russia, and the directions in which Russia is moving.

This article focuses on the Russian Federation's foreign policy vis-à-vis Belarus and Ukraine during the presidencies of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. It addresses the question: Which specific factors influenced Russian foreign policy towards the aforementioned European states? The goals of the study are to illuminate these factors and to compare Russian foreign policy at the time of Yeltsin's administration with that during Putin's presidency. Russo-Ukrainian and Russo-Belarusian relations are analyzed using the method of structured focused comparison. The research examines presidential speeches, decision-makers' memoirs, decisions or the absence thereof, and official declarations of the Russian government towards Ukraine and Belarus, as well as official agreements and empirical reality that exemplify the implementation of Russia's foreign policy. The empirical analysis reveals that geopolitical considerations, threat perception, interest groups, and decision-makers' perception of the past influenced the formation of Russia's foreign policy. Perception of the past, however, is fundamental to the understanding of this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a reaction to totalitarian constraints, after the break-up of the Soviet Union an astounding eruption and incorporation of sexually explicit imagery and iconography into diverse cultural forms occurred in Ukraine. These newly emerging discursive practices subverted the prescribed and officially enforced prudery of the sterilized Soviet society, which profoundly eroded any comfortable sense of the body in the sphere of representations that constitute social identity. While examining Yurko Pokalchuk's Ukrainian "foundational" pornographic fictions, this article explores how the writer's representations of sexuality are articulated through the dual discourse of erotic desire and transgression, focusing on the link between sexual transgression, the transgression of conventional discursive norms and regimes, and the subversion of social values, all of which are working against various social and cultural fixities. Pokalchuk's "erotomaniac" fictions, radically departing from totalitarian paradigms persistently promoted by socialist realist literature, are capable of invoking transgression through their imbrication of the public and private discourses of power and pleasure, of politics and the erotic. By employing the pornographic--the consumption of which in itself is still widely regarded as a socially transgressive practice--as the engine of transgression, he releases the sexual bodies that have been securely kept in the closet of dominant ideologies and literary conventions, public morals and societal prohibitions, uncertainties and self-censorship, into the representational sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Written texts became an especially significant element of unofficial pictorial art during the late Soviet period. Beginning in the early 1970s and continuing through the end of the Soviet Union, such painted words played a transformative role on the canvases of unofficial Russian artists. The resulting contrast between textual and visual art helped make conceptualism--the most important Russian art movement of the end of the twentieth century--an unexpectedly influential branch of unofficial Soviet art. In the case of Russian conceptualism, such artistic texts were often borrowed from the world of politics in a subtle re-evaluation of both the pictorial art that they supplanted and the political system in which they arose. This article investigates the various ways in which painted, printed, and handwritten political texts appear on the canvases of unofficial artists in the late Soviet period, 1972-1992. Art played a significant role as an ideological weapon in both the Soviet Union and the West. A better sense of the manner in which this war of words was waged in unofficial art expands our understanding of the end of the Soviet system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's return to Russia in 1994, twenty years after his exile from the Soviet Union, was regarded by many as one of the most symbolic events of the immediate post-Cold War era. Arguably the most famous dissident of the Soviet period was returning to his native land, where communism had at last disintegrated and given way to a transitional-democratic regime. However, despite receiving a prophet's welcome upon his arrival, Solzhenitsyn showed nothing but contempt for the Russian government's efforts to stabilize the country amid economic and political turmoil. Within eighteen months, Solzhenitsyn had squandered any moral sway he might have held, and had been reduced to an out-of-touch curmudgeon and object of satire amid the Russian populace. Ten years later, however, Solzhenitsyn's name and works had been given a new relevance and popular appeal, in light of a government-led effort to restructure his persona for a new generation of citizens. The long-term process through which the Russian government has accomplished this is the focus of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the origins of the "rumour of betrayal" and its role in the 1668 anti-Russian uprising in the Left-Bank part of Cossack Ukraine. It examines important political developments involving the Cossack polity and identifies the Armistice of Andrusovo between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia (1667), which cemented the division of Ukraine, as a turning point leading to the uprising. Ukrainians perceived the Armistice as a "betrayal," and their fears about the future gave rise to rumours of the betrayal and impending doom to their Fatherland. The reconstruction of the content of the "rumour of betrayal" and the political context under which it emerged points to it as the main factor behind the 1668 uprising, which marked a major, albeit temporary, setback in the Russian "Ukrainian policy" of that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines three actors in the Lviv pogrom of 1 July 1941: the Germans, Ukrainian nationalists, and the urban crowd. It argues that the Germans created the conditions for the outbreak of the pogrom and encouraged it in the first place. They also shot Jews en masse, both during and after the pogrom. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) set up a short-lived government in Lviv on 30 June headed by a vehement anti-Semite. It simultaneously plastered the city with leaflets encouraging ethnic cleansing. It formed a militia that assumed leadership in the pogrom, arresting Jews for pogrom activities. The militiamen were also present at the execution of Jews. The day after the pogrom they began to work directly for the Einsatzgruppen, again arresting Jews for execution. OUN co-operated in these anti-Jewish actions to curry favour with the Germans, hoping for recognition of a Ukrainian state. OUN's anti-Semitism facilitated assistance in anti-Jewish violence, but it was not an independent factor in the decision to stage a pogrom. The urban crowd, composed of both Poles and Ukrainians, took advantage of the particular conjuncture of high politics to act out an uninhibited script of robbery, sexual assault, beating, and murder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the legend of Charlemagne gained widespread popularity, as the figure of the emperor became a model for rulers and crusaders. However, at the same time, there was no equivalent cult of the emperor in East Central Europe, despite intensive intellectual exchange with those parts of the continent in which Charlemagne served as the highest political ideal. The examination of two early texts--the chronicles of Gallus Anonymus and Cosmas of Prague--reveals that although not completely absent from the chroniclers' repertoire of historical parallels and examples, Charlemagne was either mentioned simply as a chronological marker or (especially in the Chronicle of Cosmas of Prague) given attributes that do not appear in any other contemporary works and which suggest a local reinterpretation of his role in history and of his personality. Additionally, this is confirmed by an examination of a slightly later text--the Gesta Hungarorum, the earliest surviving work of medieval historiography in Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the ways in which Polish migrants in Ireland negotiate prevalent Polish discourses on migrant identity. The author emphasizes the complexity of migrant identity transgressions first, in order to displace a belief in a fixed homogeneity of the Polish migrant community, and secondly, to illustrate the problematics of young Polish migrants' relations with politically and culturally endorsed notions of Polishness, and, finally, to stress the need to engage migrant voices into the discussion on issues of Polish cultural and national identity. To that end the author analyzes two narratives of Polish migrants in Ireland which not only engage in contestation and negotiation of fixed identities but also emphasize the value of migration in shaping ideas about identity that transgress the idea of the nation as an absolute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a survey of scholarly articles and books written about the historiography of Slovakia since 1993. It analyzes the themes that Western scholars focus on when writing about the history of the second Slovak Republic, particularly focusing on the role that previous efforts to gain independence, or autonomy, played in the decision to split Czechoslovakia into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Some of the literature discussed includes the books "The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation versus State" by Carol Skalnik Leff, "Defining the Sovereign Community: The Czech and Slovak Republics" by Nadya Nedelsky, and "Nature Protests: The End of Ecology in Slovakia" by Edward Snajdr.

The article chronicles the marriage of the Russian writer Lev Nikolaevich (LN) Tolstoy and his wife Sof'ia Andreevna (SA) Tolstoy. It discusses how their relationship faced difficulties due to their age difference, explores reasons which led LN to forgo writing fiction in pursuit of writing philosophical treatises and examines how that decision reflected a change in his marriage to SA, and describes SA's role in editing and publishing the writings of her husband. It also analyzes the influence LN had on the aristocrat Vladimir Grigor'evich Chertkov, who began Tolstoyism, and focuses on the diary writings that SA recorded in her book "My Life."

A sentence of exile was a regular feature of the Russian revolutionary's underground career. In order to survive this punishment and continue their struggle against Tsarism, revolutionaries relied on help from their fellow exiles, their party, the Political Red Cross and, often, their families. Historians have rarely acknowledged the role of kin in supporting the revolutionary movement and very few studies have noted the attempts by families to mitigate the worst aspects of a sentence of exile. This article explores the ways in which spouses and siblings, parents and children obtained concessions from the Tsarist authorities regarding their loved ones' sentences of exile, helped off-set the poverty to which many exiles were reduced, and, above all, combated the sense of loneliness and depression to which those in exile were exposed. This article argues that such familial support had a collective and positive impact on revolutionaries' experience of exile. More broadly it provides an illuminating case study of the blurred space between public and private which the revolutionary occupied and highlights the way in which the movement depended on help from sympathizers and family members in order to function effectively on a daily basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an investigation of the life of a top hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Iosyf Neliubovych-Tukal's'kyi, pastor and a chief advisor to Hetman Petro Doroshenko (1665-1676). This article explains the circumstances and consequences of the Metropolitan's advocacy for accepting the patronage of the Muslim Ottoman sultan over Cossack Ukraine. The Metropolitan's decision is shown to be less paradoxical than it may appear, emerging out of Tukal's'kyi's understanding of what was best for Cossack Ukraine, its people, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The travel accounts of Filipp Efremov, a Russian soldier who was taken prisoner in Central Asia in 1774 and Vasilii Golovnin, a naval officer who became a prisoner of the Japanese in 1811 are two works which have thus far received little attention from literary scholars but which deserve to be included in the history of Russian travel literature. This study approaches the two narratives as literature rather than documents of history; it explores the relationship between the literary travel account and that of the newly developing genre of the novel, analyzing such elements as plot, narrative technique, character development, themes, and setting. The presence of an underlying literary tension within each narrative resulting from the subtle clash of the objective informational aspects of the account and the author's subjective personal story is considered as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 remains one of the most thoroughly researched areas of Hungarian history. However, the Romanian involvement in, and responses to, the events in Budapest have received far less scholarly attention. Secondary sources have tended to focus either on the Romanian communist party leadership and its role in incarcerating the Imre Nagy group, or on the revolution's impact on the Hungarian minority in Romania. However, this article investigates the perceptions and performance of the Romanian diplomats and intelligence officers stationed in Budapest during the uprising. Foreign ministry telegrams reveal the extensive misperceptions of, and logistical difficulties faced by, the diplomats, especially Ambassador Ion Popescu. The diplomats inflated the Hungarian dictator Mátyás Rákosi's alleged popularity, blamed the situation on imperialist plotters outside Hungary, underrated the dissent of Hungarian workers and intellectuals, and exaggerated the threat of Transylvanian irredentism. The exiguous, biased reports from the Budapest embassy, among other factors, arguably propelled the Bucharest leaders to take an active stance in containing the "counterrevolution" on their western border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article lists the summaries of contents of published collections of articles including "Wiener slawistischer Almanach" edited by Aage A. Hansen-Löve and Tilmann Reuther, "From Poets to Padonki: Linguistic Authority and Norm Negotiation in Modern Russian Culture" edited by Ingunn Lunde and Martin Paulsen, and "Leonid Aronzon: Rückkehr ins Paradies" edited by Johanna Renate Döring and Ilja Kukuj.