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This student paper, a first place winner in the 1987 National History Day competition, relates events of the first college textbook controversy in the United States. In 1947, University of Wyoming trustees authorized reviewing textbooks for "subversive tendencies." Faculty and trustees successfully negotiated the controversy, resulting in academic freedom policies still in effect. (CH)

The present paper discusses art as an environment for communicating meanings, as shared by the members of a community or culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries; for this purpose, the paper focuses on the changes taking place in cultural production as well as the consumption practices of the digital age: more specifically, on the shift from a goods-centred economy to a service-centred economy, on the experience as a commodity, on interactive art and relational aesthetics, as well as on the emergence of a new way of production and consumption. The paper also discusses a possible modernity and the cultural differences that appear in the works of Eastern European artists (and Romanian artists in particular), works which reflect the transition from communism to post-communism and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the symposium on historical geographies of modern southern Africa held at University of Sussex, Great Britain in April 2002. Analysis of developments in tradition of historical geographies; Effect of structuralist Marxist history on historical geography.

The purpose of the article. The breakdown of the so-called Eastern Bloc, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the demise of communism fueled transition processes in Central and Eastern Europe, Western Asia, and Central Asia. The great majority of transformation difficulties across different areas demonstrate that when pursuing the process of a structural change, it is important to take into account diverse sets of formal and informal institutions preserved in each country. Each country has a unique set of formal and informal institutions. These differences are easily observed between Poland and Azerbaijan. The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast the outcomes of Poland and Azerbaijan's transitions from communism to capitalism and to identify the primary factors driving these two different transformations. Methodology. The paper presents two complementary methods to compare the transitions from communism to capitalism in Poland and Azerbaijan. The first method involves secondary analysis, where existing data from reputable sources such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) database, the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), and country reports are compiled to provide insights into economic, political, and social indicators. Additionally, a comparative case study approach is employed, using Geert Hofstede's six cultural dimensions framework to explore the cultural influences on transition outcomes. By integrating these methods, the study aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of the transformation processes in Poland and Azerbaijan. Results of the research. The results of the analysis presented in the paper support the hypothesis that the historically-shaped differences in mental models and strong ties to international protectors determined the paths of transformations in Poland and Azerbaijan. The primary similarities and contrasts in the mindset are justified by the colonial or imperial history of the nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The life story of writer Karel Pecka (1928-1997) offers a unique glimpse into the history of unofficial literary and book culture in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989 as well as into the life of a writer in a totalitarian regime. Pecka's samizdat "Odyssey" started by printing the illegal leaflet magazine Za pravdu in 1949. Back then, he could hardly anticipate how much publishing in unofficial, "parallel" book circulation will define his work in the decades to follow. As a prisoner in the Jáchymov and Příbram labour camps in the 1950s, he continued secretly writing collections of poems, followed by short stories. He was a member of prison samizdat, the most beautiful items of which were reportedly written on cigarette paper. From the early 1960s on, some of his handwritten works were first distributed among selected readers in mimeographed copies due to delays in publication. His brief official writer career was cut short by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies to Czechoslovakia in August 1968. This opened the second twenty-year period of Pecka's life marked by the impossibility to publish and attempts at overcoming the barrier. His novel, Štěpení, delivered to Škvorecký in Toronto in handwritten form and subsequently issued by their '68 Publishers publishing house, made Pecka a bona fide samizdat pioneer. The normalisation of 1970s and 1980s spent in the alternative culture environment brought several more publications in exile and samizdat editions (including Motáky nezvěstnému) and a series of texts in the Obsah periodical. Pecka's samizdat life ended with the post-samizdat publication of his prison poems, Rekonstrukce, self-released in 1995, two years before his death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends that former Eastern bloc countries, which have rejected centralized, authoritarian political systems, are emulating a United Kingdom school development model which itself is authoritarian, centralized, and coercive. The paper characterizes that authoritarianism and suggests an alternative educational model of centralized governmental involvement in education. (JDD)

The aim of this paper is to explore the forms of official and unofficial negotiation, using the rescue of the Staré Hrady castle, renovated between 1949 and 1993, as a case in point. The paper first outlines the earlier history and current situation of this monument, then the cultural and legal context, the actors and, lastly, the history of the rescue itself. It then proceeds to examine the final phase of the rescue to provide an illustrative example of a castle renovation project that was financially and ideologically supported by the regime and where the rescue went hand in hand with its cultural use, which served as an argument for the renovation in the first place. The paper discusses the forms of communication formally required for the official negotiation related to this project, as well as the informal level of the negotiation, which existed outside the written sources. It concludes that both of these negotiation levels were equally important for the preservation of the Staré Hrady castle: they were used as dictated by the situation and ultimately aimed at achieving the same goal: to preserve a cultural monument whose restoration had been considered impossible and pointless a little more than two decades earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Sociologists in Communism. The beginnings of a profession without status” is a collective volume coordinated by Sorin Mitulescu and contains the stories of some sociology graduates in 1975 and of some of their teachers at that time. The book is both an essay in sociology and a collection of oral history papers. We understand from reading the book that sociology was at that time the victim of the oscillations in Romanian politics between the desire for modernization (especially technological) and the fearful and dogmatic conservatism that had penetrated all social levels. Sociologists in communism want to be a starting point in a broader debate on the role of sociology and the sociologist, both in the past and in the present. He discusses several topics such as the relationship between sociology and power, the professional mobility of sociologists, the relationship between personal life and the career of a practicing sociologist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces four papers addressing problems of higher education in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Issues identified include overcoming the Communist heritage, the separation of teaching and research, low student numbers, appropriate diversification of higher education, increasing access, the role of the state, and higher education and the economy. (DB)

Copyright of Theological Review / Bogoslovska Smotra is the property of University of Zagreb, Catholic Faculty of Theology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Discusses various issues related to the treatment of money and credit in the socialist economies, with specific reference to the erstwhile Soviet Union. Nature of money in the socialist economies; Assumption of Marxism that in a socialist planned economy without markets money would disappear; Retention of a form of paper money with certain restricted social functions; Use of socialist quasi-money and socialist quasi-prices.

The legacy of legal-political ideologists is seldom used as an element of argumentation in court. The situation is different in proceedings focussing on political crimes, in particular, the trials taking place in disruptive moments of history. One of such moments was the period after Poland regained independence, when the Soviet Union posed not only a military threat, but also one of doctrinal influence. The objective of the paper was to verify the hypothesis that the trial of communists which took place in Lwów in late 1922 / early 1923 (known as the St. Jura trial) was significant not only in terms of its legal-criminal aspects, but was also important from a historical and doctrinal perspective. The verification of the hypothesis was based on the analysis of court speeches, especially their elements including references to the legacy of legal-political ideas. Additionally, the paper presents legal-political ideas as highly argumentative material that may be, and perhaps should be, used in legal practice today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vegueta: Anuario de la Facultad de Geografía e Historia is the property of Vegueta: Anuario de la Facultad de Geografia e Historia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)