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The present paper is an introduction to and analysis of the article "Literary criticism must be scientific", presented here for the first time in English translation. The original was published by Lotman in 1967 in the journal Voprosy Literatury. The article by Lotman is a part of a wider debate, started in 1963, that saw structuralists and their opponents dispute the validity and heuristic value of structuralist methodology in literary criticism. The aim of the introduction is to explore Lotman's engagements with his intellectual context as they emerge in his 1967 article. The first part of the paper discusses the wider context of the debate, and explores the positions of the opponents of structuralism and the ways in which Lotman relates to them. The second part of the paper analyses how Lotman and his structuralist colleagues related to the official Soviet ideology, the diamat. In both cases, it will be seen how Lotman engaged certain aspects of his opponents' ideas, as well as the official ideology, in order to further his goal of reconciling structuralism and historicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As access to an essential part of clozapine research from the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) states is very limited, quality aspects have not gained attention so far, and harmonization with modern research standards remains unclear. We performed a systematic search in PubMed, Embase and scientific indexes from former USSR states for articles published in Russian language till January 2023 (PROSPERO Reg. Number CRD42023386737) and assessed their quality using the modified Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE)-Checklist. We compared quality aspects for papers published before and after 2000. A total of 60 papers were considered. Conflicts of interests and funding sources were reported in 5 and 3 (8 % and 5 %) studies respectively; ethical approval was warranted in two studies (3 %). Statistical analysis was performed in 57 (95 %) studies, but statistical methods were described in 21 (35 %) studies. When comparing studies before and after 2000, there was a trend towards improvement for several aspects, with the only significant differences being the objectives' specification (43 vs 83 %, p < 0.003) and the reporting of statistical methodology (0.0 vs 46 %, p < 0.001), which were more frequently available in papers after 2000. Clozapine papers in Russian language suffered from severe methodological drawbacks limiting generalizability. Changes regarding standardization, transparency, ethics, and good scientific practice are urgently required. Using reporting checklists and predefining protocols are the first steps towards quality upgrade and accelerate the integration of science from the former USSR states into the world scientific system. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a comparison between Romanian communist counterinsurgency (1944–1962) and similar campaigns fought by Western and Eastern governments in the early Cold War, in particular those waged by the British and French governments in their African, Asian and European colonies and those of the Soviet Union in its borderlands. The comparison focuses on three main components, population control, intelligence and military operations. Highlighting both similarities and differences across different cultural, economic, geographical, ethnic and political landscapes, the perspective laid out in this paper is an argument in favour of systematic and sustained comparative approaches to asymmetric warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This critical interpretive paper deploys Walter Mignolo's geopolitics of knowledge concept to examine higher education internationalisation in Kazakhstan. Amidst growing concerns about economic and environmental sustainability, elitism and cognitive justice, among other critical issues, internationalisation remains a vital government policy. By tracing Kazakhstan's development since independence from the Soviet Union and focusing on key higher education development policy frameworks, the paper argues and illustrates that: (1) the internationalisation of higher education in Kazakhstan promotes a specific representation of the world that is considered universal and modern; (2) the internationalisation of higher education in Kazakhstan illustrates the existing hierarchical global higher education system that is dominated by the West as centres of knowledge and learning while allocating other countries peripheral roles; and (3) the geopolitics of knowledge concept enables the reading of higher education internationalisation beyond what is knowledge to who, why and where knowledge is produced. The data for this paper came from a qualitative study that involved 15 semi‐structured interviews with graduates who studied abroad at Western universities through the government‐sponsored Bolashak Scholarship. Three focus group sessions with 21 graduate students at Nazarbayev University complemented the interviews. The qualitative data suggest that Mignolo's geopolitics of knowledge offers a close‐to‐perfect description of the internationalisation of higher education in Kazakhstan. The conclusion drawn from this post‐Soviet study is the universalisation of Western knowledge as nations utilise it for meaningful development, despite decolonial and cognitive justice concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses critical discourse analysis and critical literacy to analyze the first in a series of literacy primers developed with US support for children in Afghanistan in the 1980s, called 'Jihad literacy'. The text is analyzed for its ideological content as related to the themes of religion, violence, and martyrdom in the historical perspective of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The paper demonstrates how the notion of 'Jihad' was subverted to promote a holy war against the Soviet invasion. The educational system supported by the US created a radical version of Islam based on violence and martyrdom, shaping the Afghan society to this day. We contend that the same or similar institutions shape current discourses as in the past and that children are the main victims of politico-economic warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on higher education regionalism, this paper explores international branch campus (IBC) initiatives undertaken by one of the largest Russian IBC-exporting institutions, the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU). To date, very little is known about higher education (HE) export-import between the post-Soviet countries. This qualitative inquiry critically examines the Soviet legacy of LMSU IBCs to understand their origins, purposes, and utility as a form of HE export. This paper sheds light on (1) the similarities and differences between six LMSU IBCs and (2) discourses used to rationalise the establishment of LMSU branch campuses. The findings from this paper suggest that LMSU IBCs are established (a) to promote the Russian HE model, (b) to strengthen political and cultural ties with neighbouring countries, and (c) to bolster LMSU's image and brand appeal in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes changes in the distribution of Soviet pulp, paper, and paperboard production between the years 1940 and 1965. Regional variation exists both in physical volume of production and in type of plant. Production of pulp and paper occurs primarily in integrated plants. whereas most paperboard is manufactured in non-integrated mills. but integrated manufacture of all three products has increased between 1940 and 1965. Regional location of production in the Soviet pulp and paper industry has been heavily influenced by historical events, by the Proportion of weight lost during processing of roundwood, by creation of new mills and expansion of older establishments, and by the operational characteristics of Soviet central planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the changing locational patterns of the pulp and paper industry in Soviet Union. Evaluation of the changes locational pattern of the industry; Range of per capita consumption of the industry; Terms of capital investments.

Access to literature on clozapine in Russian language remains strikingly limited. We aimed to identify and translate clinical evidence on clozapine-based treatment outcomes. We performed a systematic review in PubMed, Embase and scientific indexes from former USSR states searching for articles published in Russian from the database inception till January 2023 and summarized the data in a scoping review (PROSPERO Reg. Number CRD42023386737). A total of 60 papers were included comprising eight main topic categories: 1) clozapine-related intoxications (n = 20), 2) effectiveness/efficacy and safety of clozapine treatment (n = 14), 3) adverse drug-induced reactions (ADRs) related to clozapine treatment (n = 9), 4) therapeutic drug monitoring for clozapine (n = 5), 5) combination of clozapine and non-pharmacological treatments (n = 4), 6) pharmacoepidemiology of clozapine (n = 3), 7) effects of clozapine on the brain electrical activity (n = 3), and 8) novel clozapine formulations (n = 2). Among clozapine-related intoxications there were reports of criminal poisoning, which was associated with low lethality. Worse outcomes were accompanied by systemic reactions to intoxications. Clinical benefits of hemoadsorption were reported in the management of clozapine-related intoxications. Only half of studies reporting clozapine effectiveness used standardized scales to assess outcomes. Clozapine superiority in treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) was replicated in one trial. No reports of clozapine-related agranulocytosis were identified. Clozapine ranked among most prescribed antipsychotics for TRS and non-TRS. As clinical research in former USSR states is advancing to adopt western clinical research standards, comparability and extrapolation of findings is expected to increase, with transfer of older findings to clinical practice being particularly challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study provides new insight into the key aspects of the early formative period of the ecosystem concept in aquatic ecology. Raymond Lindeman's trophodynamics is known to be a starting point for the development of the modern concept of ecosystem. The trophodynamic approach in ecology was proposed by Lindeman in his widely cited paper of 1942. Lindeman's views are analyzed in comparison with the contemporary production studies in aquatic ecology. It is shown that a similar theoretical system has been proposed in the USSR at the end of the 1930s by Georgiy G. Vinberg. He introduced the concept of biotic balance based on the wide appraisal of the dark and light bottles method. The study shows that both Lindeman's trophodynamics and Vinberg's concept of biotic balance relied on an energy-based approach in considering the wholeness of a water body. The two scientists, however, differed in several important aspects concerning the interpretation of the role of living organisms. The holistic interpretation of ecosystem by Lindeman and Vinberg can be seen as part of the dilemma between physicalism and organicism. At the same time, the main emphasis in the concepts of both Vinberg and Lindemann was on the primary production component, a feature that was common to the first holistic systems in production hydrobiology (e.g., E. Naumann's regional limnology). It is clear that modern problems of aquatic ecology should be addressed from the perspective of the organismocentric understanding of the ecosystem, but undoubtedly at the new level of development of this view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manifestation of Russian imperial ambitions in February 2022 caught many around the world by surprise, but Ukrainian scholarly attempts at decolonization had been ongoing for years prior to the invasion. Intellectuals have strived to re-imagine Ukrainian identity beyond the conceptualization of the country in imperial discourse as 'little Russia'. This paper examines how the phenomenon of the intelligentsia has been re-interpreted, by performing a critical discourse analysis of Ukrainian scholarly discourse on the dichotomy between 'intellectuals' and 'intelligentsia', a dichotomy previously used by the Soviet Union to juxtapose Western and Soviet academics. The study focuses on scholarship that has been underrepresented in the global science system because its research outputs have been communicated in Ukrainian rather than English. The analysis demonstrates how the scholarly discourse reclaims the agency of Ukrainian intellectuals and challenges the Soviet collectivist understanding of the term 'intelligentsia'. Ukrainian academics approach the reassessment of colonial legacies critically. They reject the intellectuals–intelligentsia dichotomy by reconciling the two terms to accommodate the identity of Ukrainian scholars who are able to shape their individual purpose through their restored academic freedom and individual agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on books and articles pertaining to nuclear secrets in the Soviet Union. `Every Man Should Try,' by Jeremy Stone; `Bombshell,' by Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel; Details on articles that appeared in `Novoye Vremya.'

This paper examines the contest between Canadian American industrialist Cyrus Eaton and the Pugwash scientists' leadership for influence over the early Pugwash scientists' conferences. Eaton's activism has generally been dismissed in the historical literature as ineffective, naive and too uncritical of the Soviet Union. This paper argues that he was genuinely committed to international peace and security, that Eaton shared with Pugwash scientists a belief in the importance of intellectuals to global unity, and that he worked to bring about greater international peace and understanding through both his personal activism and his own conferences held in the town of Pugwash. Eaton, however, favoured a broader push for peace, which included participation by a wider range of intellectuals and a call for rapprochement with the Soviet Union. These differences between Eaton and the Pugwash scientists, I argue, were more than simply about approach: they represented different internationalist visions and manifested in different conceptualizations for the Pugwash scientists' conferences. Eaton hoped to incorporate non-scientists and humanism into the conferences, and integrate them into his own broader conference programme at his Thinkers' Lodge at Pugwash. The scientists, however, wanted to keep their conferences as distinctly scientists' events, tied to science and its authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the production of vernacular geological knowledge about uranium during the Cold War. In particular, it investigates uranium gathering practices in Siberia as a form of geopower exercised where Soviet citizens were encouraged to participate in geological exploration of the 'bowels of the Earth' for national benefits. This paper further discusses a novel theorization of the early Soviet understanding of the Anthropocene concept in its relation to the notion of nuclearity as formulated by Soviet scholar Vladimir Vernadsky (1863–1945). Finally, the Soviet nuclear project's legacies are analyzed through indigenous experiences of living near the uranium mine in Siberia. The material used for this research comprised a selected set of youth magazine articles and guidelines issued in the 1930s–1950s by Soviet geological agencies with the aim of promoting vernacular geological practices among Soviet citizens, as well as archival materials and field data collected from geologists and indigenous people in Transbaikalia, eastern Siberia, in 2021. This paper shows that Soviet citizens were a crucial part of the nuclear ideology and, at the same time, were treated as the means of nuclear production because of their ability to search for and extract uranium. It further shows how nuclear discourse in the Soviet Union and modern Russia has been shaped by Vernadsky's ideas about the role of nuclear power in the transformation of society. • Novel theorization of the early Soviet understanding of the Anthropocene concept as formulated by Vernadsky. • Nuclearity as a geospatial concept includes social and geographical aspects of the use and extraction of uranium. • The inclusion of all social strata into uranium-gathering practices in the Soviet Union. • The Soviet version of geopower as the idea of mineral resources as a substantial component of the national geo-body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the years before and after the Second World War, chemical and related industries in a variety of countries experienced a surge in innovation and development. As a result, the pulp industry became a space for considerable innovation. In Sweden, Johan Richter developed the Kamyr digester, a pulp cooker that could run continuously and was adopted by industry within a decade. Prior to Richter, Soviet engineer Leonid Zherebov designed a similar cooker. But after 25 years of experiments, Zherebov’s design failed, and Soviet factories began to produce pulp using imported Kamyr digesters. This article examines the history of continuous pulp cooking in the Soviet Union as a means to understand the nature of Russian technological innovation and its failures. The paper contends that his effort failed because of the technological system developed by Soviet forestry – a system characterized by a lack of open communication among its main institutional actors and a scarcity of resources to facilitate innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A gas–hydrate method of CO2 gas storage is one of the modern technologies for reducing it emissions into the atmosphere. The breakup of gas bubbles by a shock wave is an actual area of scientific and technological research. However, it is less known that such research began in the late 1950s in the USSR by Prof. Vladilen F. Minin. The paper presents the main discoveries related to the destruction of gas bubbles in a liquid under the influence of a shock wave made more than 60 years ago. Looking back: Study the past to understand the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When teaching electroanalysis, always reference should be made to its history, which mainly started with polarography. Since Tatyana Kryukova played an important role in the development of polarography, students should be made aware of her life. The scientific achievements of Kryukova on polarographic maxima, her principal scientific field will be discussed in a paper, written by Galina Tsirlina (for ChemTexts). Here, we provide information about the biography of Tatyana Kryukova and her relatives, her studies and work, difficulties of fate and creative successes, and the most significant achievements in polarography and education in electrochemistry. In the material preceding the biographical data, the state of polarography in the USSR in the mid-1930s is considered. It was a time when the hardships and problems of researchers were largely due to politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many in the Soviet leadership, Ayatollah Khomeini's anti-Americanism was a sufficient reason for supporting the Iranian Revolution. Yet in Rostislav Ulianovskii's view, the revolution gave Iran a much bigger opportunity: a chance to fit in the Soviet theoretical concept of 'the non-capitalist path of development'. With this picture in mind Ulianovskii and the Tudeh Party developed a strategy of temporary support for Khomeini, expecting him to fulfil his temporary 'objectively progressive' role and give way to the truly 'progressive' forces. This paper investigates the ideological constraints that led to the formation of this strategy and its imminent failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illustrates the recruitment profile of the Civil War cohort of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1921. It disputes the traditional historiography, which presents the party as undergoing a linear process of decay and corruption ending in the period of the careerists of the Brezhnev period. Instead it demonstrates that even in the early period of the revolutionary republic the party was an attractive prospect for those wishing to attain position and privilege. Once it had shown itself to be the victor in the conflict, the party enjoyed considerable popularity in unexpected regions, attracting ambitious young peasants from the peripheries of the former Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines Russia's cultural expansionism that extends beyond the military invasion in Ukraine since 2014. In the first part, I trace Russia's systematic efforts to seize and manipulate Ukrainian heritage, often under the guise of protection. I also touch on the role of museums in this expansion, where they are used to preserve collections through coercive acquisition and to promote a Russian-centric narrative. The second part of the article delves into the historical relationships between Russia and Ukraine, especially in the context of the Soviet era's museum infrastructure. Overall, the text calls for new concepts and international efforts to critique Russia's actions and protect Ukrainian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses why Cuba, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia attempted to establish air transport agreements with Chile, as well as their objectives and those of their airlines. It also examines the response of the Allende government and other Chilean key actors. The paper shows that the interest in signing these agreements lay in the Socialist bloc countries. Their reasons varied depending on their particular situation and foreign policy goals. By contrast, Chile saw the negotiation of agreements as a means of strengthening its ties with the Soviet bloc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines absurdities in contemporary society and workplaces. Absurdity arises from the absence of rationality, where observed human practices paradoxically veer away from official discourse and institutional rhetoric. Absurdity does not exist in a vacuum but is penetrated by and hypernormalized through internalized societal ideologies. Hypernormalization, or the normalization of absurdity, was originally coined by Russian-born anthropologist Yurchak (2003, 2005) to understand the split between ideological, authoritative discourse and practice in the last decades of the Soviet Union. We extend the understanding of hypernormalization to describe how contemporary absurdities are normalized both in society and organizations. Moreover, we explain how hypernormalization unfolds at collective and individual levels through ideological fantasy and internalization. Fantasmatic investment and internalization enable individuals to manage the absurdities arising from the perpetual gap between authoritative discourse (e.g., companies' commitment to climate action) and actual day-to-day practices (e.g., companies' continued investment in fossil fuels). We finish by presenting three interrelated steps through which resistance, as a mechanism to deal with hypernormalization, emerges: problematization, resistance and imagination. We contribute to the literature by showing how these three ways may offer a way out of hypernormalization in society and workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various professional, economic, and personal reasons underpin current migration flows. This article integrated the concepts of lifestyle travelling and lifestyle migration by bringing the tourism-migration nexus to the fore to analyse lifestyle issues of individuals that impact their decisions to be mobile. Sixteen in-depth semi-structured interviews with young Russian migrants, a 'modern' population with different perspectives about opportunities to travel and migrate than their USSR predecessors, were conducted with a focus on their life experiences, mobility 'careers' and starting points of migration. Thematic analysis and iterative engagement with data led to the creation of the Movement Continuum. This Movement Continuum connects different stages of movement ranging from the first trip, long-term travelling, permanent migration, and the final decision to settle down. The paper suggests the continued need for a better understanding of the importance of lifestyle in mobility and migration journeys. It identifies those moments of crisis in the mobility and migration journey that affect an individual's intentions to stay on the move and/or to migrate. The findings complement discourses around the role of personal crisis in migration, mobilities, and tourism and highlight the necessity for further research regarding the better exploration of the relationship between lifestyle travel and lifestyle migration in tourism geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though an individual's right to legal identity has been internationally codified, in certain instances, the legal identity and associated documents may lack widespread international recognition. This is the case in aspirant (de facto) states such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. This paper argues that certain legal identities become liminal due to the nonrecognition of the conferring authority, and/or the associated legal identity documents. The recognition of legal identity documents can change based on where a person is located (territorial jurisdiction), the administrative authority issuing the documents, and the authority assessing the legitimacy of the conferred legal identity documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following reunification after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the eastern German city of Dessau lost population and entire industrial sectors to the more dynamic economies of western Germany, leaving behind a glut of vacant and derelict properties. Dessau's planners proscribed their demolition, replacing them with a greenway surrounding neighbourhoods as water does an archipelago that has substantially increased biodiversity but has failed, despite the city's encouragement, to attract community support. This paper explores what adjustments might be necessary for the archipelago model to be more readily adopted by other shrinking cities and new urban developments worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the discovery of papers on Soviet socialism written by Leon Trotsky and his son, Lev Sedov, in the Boris I. Nicolaevsky Collection in the Archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University in California. Contribution of Leon Trotsky to the study of Russian history; Other repositories in which Trotsky papers can be found; Content of and period covered by the Hoover Institution papers.

In this paper, a joint study of the behavior of solutions of the Heavy Ball ODE and Heavy Ball type algorithms is given. Since the pioneering work of Polyak (USSR Comput Math Math Phys 4(5):1–17, 1964), it is well known that such a scheme is very efficient for C 2 strongly convex functions with Lipschitz gradient. But much less is known when only growth conditions are considered. Depending on the geometry of the function to minimize, convergence rates for convex functions, with some additional regularity such as quasi-strong convexity, or strong convexity, were recently obtained in Aujol et al. (Convergence rates of the Heavy-Ball method for quasi-strongly convex optimization, 2020). Convergence results with much weaker assumptions are given in the present paper: namely, linear convergence rates when assuming a growth condition (which amounts to a Łojasiewicz property in the convex case). This analysis is firstly performed in continuous time for the ODE, and then transposed for discrete optimization schemes. In particular, a variant of the Heavy Ball algorithm is proposed, which converges geometrically whatever the parameters choice, and which has the best state of the art convergence rate for first order methods to minimize composite non smooth convex functions satisfying a Łojasiewicz property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Granting the idea that certain theoretical conceptualisations of Marxism broadly represent a political religion, this paper seeks to explore how one can come to understand the function of individual theoretical concepts within the wider theory of Stalinism. In so doing, this approach to political religion will be explored within the confines of Stalin's concept of the Intensification of Class Struggle under Socialism. Assuming that individual theoretical concepts of an ideology that has been labelled a political religion serve the same function as doctrines within traditional religion, this paper argues that the Intensification of Class Struggle under Socialism can be interpreted as having an apocalyptic quality. By doing so, this paper seeks to extend the boundaries of both the study of political religion and the theoretical exploration of Marxism as it relates to the question and role of religion within the social and political sphere. While doing so, this paper also seeks to provide an illustration of what the exploration of political religion in relation to Marxism looks like at the level of specific theoretical elements as opposed to a mere overarching characterisation of the entire theoretical enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the trial production of marine gas hydrate in the former Soviet Union, Canada, North Slope of Alaska, South Sea Trough of Japan and Shenhu Sea of South China Sea, the problem of sand and water production cannot be avoided. The problems of sand production and water production in the process of natural gas hydrate depressurization exploitation have seriously restricted the exploitation efficiency and production of natural gas hydrate. The problems of sand production and water production are some of the main factors that prevent natural gas hydrate being commercially exploited. Therefore, it is urgent to carry out useful, relevant and cutting-edge research on the efficient drainage of sand and water from the wellbore in the process of natural gas hydrate mining. This paper innovatively proposes liquid-carrying and solid-carrying technology under foam circulation purging to address the existing problems of sand removal and drainage technology in hydrate mining. At present, no scholar has used this technology to solve the problem of sand removal and drainage in hydrate mining. Therefore, the research on efficient drainage is imperative. In this paper, We mainly studied the liquid-carrying and solid-carrying of vertical wellbore under the condition of foam cycle purging. We have revealed the relevant the liquid-carrying law and solid-carrying law through the above research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

October Revolution of 1917 had undoubtedly fired the imagination of a section of people of many colonized countries all over the world. The search was not only for emancipation from the clutches of the colonizing or oppressive powers, but also for a better alternative to the prevailing systems of government/administration. Travelogues, books, reports and write-ups on Russia/Soviet Union since that time stand witness to this fact. Indian politicians and revolutionaries also visited Russia and wrote their accounts. In 1930, the first non-European Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore visited Russia and wrote his famous collection of letters Russiar Chithi (1931, in English Letters from Russia). Some writers and poets from Indian literatures (Bangla, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil etc.) accepted the revolutionary theme and used it in their creative works. But certainly the receptions and perceptions of Russia were not homogeneous across time, space and people. Like everything else under the sun, it also has a history of evolution. In the present paper, I talked about and analyzed Indian writer Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay's reception of Soviet Union, as documented in his travelogue Moscow-te Koyek Din (A Few Days in Moscow, 1959). Tarasankar went to Soviet Union as the leader of the Indian delegation to attend the preparatory committee meeting of Afro-Asian Writers' Association in Moscow in 1957. He also attended the Afro-Asian Writers' Conference that took place in Tashkent in October 1958. What is conspicuous in this paper is his uncompromising attitude to stand apart, to be different; which was the dominant attitude in the policies and politics of the newly independent India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE PRESENT PAPER REPRESENTS A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS OF THE UNITED STATES AND SOVIET UNION IN THE MOMENT OF THE END OF THE COLD WAR, FROM THE THEORETICAL LENSES PROVIDED BY THE NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS MODEL AS DEVISED BY DARON ACEMOGLU AND JAMES A. ROBINSON. THIS PAPER TRIES TO ANSWER THE QUESTION OF WHY THE UNITED STATES PRESERVED THE SUPERPOWER STATUS AND THE SOVIET UNION DID NOT. THIS PAPER ARGUES THAT THE UNITED STATES HAD BETTER POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS THAN THE SOVIET UNION. THEREFORE, THE SUPERIOR CHARACTER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS MADE THE DIFFERENCE AT THE END OF THE COLD WAR, THE UNITED STATES BEING ABLE TO PRESERVE ITS SUPERPOWER STATUS, WHILE THE SOVIET UNION COLLAPSED AND DISAPPEARED AS A STATE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 1948 the first academic session of the Tallinn State Conservatoire took place. The organisation of this event was directly related to the resolution of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "On Muradeli's Opera The Great Friendship", which was issued on 10 February 1948 and marked a significant increase in ideological pressure on the musical life of the USSR. In accordance with the demands of the Party, the session concentrated on (re)evaluating Estonia's musical heritage according to the principles of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics and on seeking the relationship between Estonian and Russian culture. This article examines the papers of the session from the perspective of the expression of Soviet ideology. One of the strategies of the Soviet regime for implementing its worldview was the re-evaluation of the past by rewriting history. From the point of view of Estonian music history, the Conservatoire's session papers were one of the first documented pieces of evidence of such a reassessment. The purpose of the article is therefore to analyse what elements of Soviet ideology are present in the texts and how and by which means the authors associated them with Estonian music history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of language and script change among the Turkic communities of the Soviet Union often focuses on the switch from Arabic to Latin scripts. Less attention is paid to adaptations of the Arabic script to Turkic vernaculars, and to attempts aimed at convincing the literate masses of their usefulness. In the current paper, I aim to do just that. By making use of Turkic-language periodicals from Crimea, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, I throw light on the era before Latin. I explore writers', editors' and other intellectuals' efforts to vernacularize written languages and enforce national boundaries along Soviet lines through changes to the dominant script. More than this, I investigate these actors' use of magazines to convince their readers of new vernacular, language- and territory-based national identities. In doing so, I demonstrate that periodicals became implements of national consciousness creation targeted at the Turkic citizens of the early Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mycopesticides are living preparations that use fungal cells, such as spores and hyphae, as active ingredients. They mainly include mycoinsecticides, mycofungicides, mycoherbicides and nematophagous fungi. The utilization of fungi for controlling agricultural pests can be traced back to approximately 1880, when entomopathogenic fungi were initially employed for this purpose. However, it was not until 1965 that the world's first mycopesticide, Beauveria bassiana, was registered as Boverin® in the former Soviet Union. In past decades, numerous novel mycopesticides have been developed for their lower R&D costs, as well as the environmentally friendly and safe nature. In this review, we investigated the mycopesticides situation of registration in USA, EU, China, Canada and Australia. Superisingly, it was found that the registered mycopesticides are extremely raised in recent years. Currently, the insecticides, fungicides (nematocides) and herbicides were respectively registered 27, 53 and 8 fungal strains. This paper also analyzes the main problems currently faced by mycopesticides and offers suggestions for their future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honing in on how citizens in the former Soviet Union find themselves in an information competition over their own past, this paper explores whether and why ordinary people's perceptions of historical events and figures in their country's past are in line with a Russian-promoted narrative that highlights World War II – known as the "Great Patriotic War" in Russia and some former Soviet states – as a glorious Soviet victory and Stalin as a great leader. We draw on comparative survey data across six states and one de facto state in 2019–2020 to examine whether geopolitical or cultural proximity to Russia is associated with a more favourable view on a Russian-promoted narrative about the past. We find that closer geopolitical proximity to Russia is associated with perceiving the past in line with the Russian-promoted narrative, though the findings are less consistent when it comes to measures for closer cultural proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During Communism, party members and their relatives were typically privileged elites in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union (FSU). At the same time, secret police informants were often coerced to spy and report on their fellow citizens. After the fall of Communism, CEE countries and the Baltics underwent decommunization, unlike most FSU countries. This paper is the first to empirically distinguish between these two Communist party regime affiliations and study their long-term implications for the well-being and preferences of affiliated individuals and their relatives. In the FSU, we find that individuals connected to the former Communist party are more satisfied with their lives, but those linked to secret police informants seem to have lower life satisfaction than those without such ties. The life satisfaction benefit of having former Communist regime party connections in the FSU is, on average, equivalent to one month's household income. Simultaneously, the psychological costs of being an informant can amount to two monthly household incomes. In CEE countries, having informant connections is not associated with life satisfaction, but having links to the former Communist party is negatively correlated with subjective well-being. Formal and informal decommunization efforts are an important mechanism behind our findings. We also show that those connected to the former regimes differ from those without such connections in their preferences for democracy and market economy, levels of optimism, and risk tolerance, which provides suggestive evidence for the mechanisms underpinning our findings. Our results underscore that the former Communist regimes produced winners and losers based on the trustee status of their collaborators that decommunization efforts further shaped and solidified. Future decommunization efforts in the FSU may thus have important welfare implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Russian industrial heritage and its interactions with society. It focuses on changing identities and the transformation of industrial enterprises from connecters to the future in Soviet times, to bridges to both the past and the future for different social groups in post-Soviet Russia. Based on regional examples from the Russian northwest, this article analyzes the trajectories of industrial enterprises from urban centers to peripheries, and the socio-cultural appropriation they experience. Based on newspaper articles, online comments of citizens, and materials from Internet communities, this analysis explores discussions about the reuse of abandoned industrial heritage in Russia. First, it shows how industrial enterprises have moved from centers of the future to peripheries of the past during the last century, and continue to do so at present. Second, it examines how citizens interact with them today, producing nostalgia for the "lost" Soviet past and using abandoned buildings for stalker adventures. The paper concludes that abandoned enterprises transform from industrial centers to cultural sites, binding past, present and future together in a temporal conjunction where three unique temporalities co-exist and overlap: the socialist past, the modern Russian present, and imagined futures. Abandoned heritage is a dynamic participant in cultural and social activities but simultaneously it signifies disappearing industrial socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many maps produced in the former Soviet Union have become available. However, researchers have focused on topographical maps or those of Western cities produced by the General Staff for military use, and less on maps created by GUGK, the state mapping agency, for domestic purposes, including tourism. By contrast, this paper focuses on maps produced for tourists, whether travelling by private car or on an organized rail or bus tour. The 42 maps reviewed take three main forms: those covering a single administrative region, ranging from an oblast to a Soviet republic; those of a specific tourist area or associated with a literary hero; and strip maps connecting major cities. The paper considers the general design and symbology used on these maps, tracing some of the stylistic changes and developments in the quarter-century prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soviet military maps utilized a comprehensive cartographic symbology that was designed for mapping the globe at various scales, including thousands of towns and cities in street-level detail. This paper presents an analysis of the Soviet symbol specifications, as defined by the official cartographic production documents, and aims to offer some insights into how the challenges of mapping a global diversity of urban and natural environments were addressed. A further stage of the analysis examines a sample of 19 Soviet military city plans to evaluate the implementation of the official symbology specified in the production documents. This finds that barely half of this symbology was utilized and that new symbols were routinely created as improvised solutions. By comparing the theoretical context of the symbology with its real-world application the paper offers a critical appraisal of the versatility of the Soviet approach that may inform current and future global mapping initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with portraits of historical figures, images relating to the culture and history of a particular nation, the presence (or absence) of languages on banknotes is also an element of symbolic politics and part of the manifestation of the language policy of a particular state. In this paper, banknotes are seen as an element of the linguistic landscape, and the linguistic landscape – as a reflection of language policy, its peculiar public expression. This paper analyses the way in which the text displayed on multilingual banknotes constructs and reproduces linguistic hierarchies, reflecting the relative status of the languages within two multi-ethnic states: the Czechoslovak Republic and the Soviet Union. The study explores which languages were represented in the inscriptions of the various series of banknotes issued, based on the assumption that banknotes participate in the official language practices constituting the linguistic landscape and as such mediate language ideologies. The authors conclude that even multinational states that issue multilingual banknotes guarantee that the state language should be in a dominant position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Samuil Kaplan (1921-1978) was a productive and famous astrophysicist. He was affiliated with a number of scientific centers in different cities of the former Soviet Union. During the earliest 13 years of his career, namely in 1948-1961, he worked at the Lviv University in Ukraine. In the present paper, the Lviv period of his life and scientific activity is described on the basis of archival materials and his published studies. Kaplan arrived in Lviv in June 1948, the same month when he obtained the degree of the Candidate of Science. He was a head of the astrophysics sector at the Astronomical Observatory of the University, a professor of the department for theoretical physics, as well as the founder and head of a station for optical observations of artificial satellites of the Earth. He was active in the organization of an astronomical observatory outside the city. During the years in Lviv, Kaplan wrote more than 80 articles and 3 monographs in 9 areas. At that time, his focus was on the stability of circular orbits in the Schwarzschild field, on the white dwarf theory, on space gas dynamics, on cosmic plasma physics and turbulence, on the acceleration of cosmic rays, on the physics of interstellar medium, on the physics and evolution of stars, on cosmology and gravitation, and on the optical observations of the Earth's artificial satellites. Some of his findings are fundamental to the development of theory in those fields as well as of observational techniques. The paper presents a complete bibliography of Kaplan's works published during the Lviv period and reviews his respective scientific achievements in the light of the current state of research in those areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns one of the first displays of ethnic violence in the recent history of the USSR that took place in the city of Sumgait in the Azerbaijan SSR in February 1988 and was the start of violence of an anti-Armenian nature. It is a study of contemporary perceptions, definitions and terminology. Arising from this object, this paper examines the following questions: • What were Armenian perceptions and characteristics of the Sumgait massacres and the factors that governed their conditions • What definitions and perceptions were merited as a result of the Sumgait massacres by the Azerbaijan side • How were the Sumgait massacres evaluated by the international public and the USSR leadership • What were the definitions of the terms given to the Sumgait massacres and their characteristics. Research has been carried out on the basis of specialist literature, archival materials, witness statements, contemporary periodical press etc. Descriptions, analyses, narrative analyses and comparative methods were also utilized in this study. As a result of the research carried out, the conclusion was reached that the February 1988 massacres of the Armenian population of the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait by the participants, various political circles and structures, conditioned by several factors, merited different appraisals. On the Armenian side, they were immediately linked, in the collective Armenian consciousness, to the Armenian Genocide realized in the 20th century within the Ottoman Empire. The central authorities, arising out of Soviet national policy principles, interpreted the event as “mass unrest”. In its euphemistic definitions, the Azerbaijani side attempted to “neutralize” the ethnically based violence used against a part of the population. The “Armenian intrigue and treachery” theory, as a “legal” explanation of the violence, aims to justify the crimes committed and evade any responsibility for them. The international public saw the Sumgait massacres in an ethnic context, stressing the laudable, necessary measures taken by the central authorities to prevent and stop them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Georgia, the question of academic freedom emerged only after the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and its universities could begin reckoning with a heavy past of ideological pressure, censorship, governmental control and top‐down management. Despite official declarations of the right to academic freedom and its recognition within Georgia's legal framework, actual practice in the country's higher education system tells a different story. The paper draws on qualitative data obtained from sixteen academics representing diverse institutions and disciplines, as well as the secondary data including educational legislation, government regulations, ministers' decrees, various reports from non‐governmental organisations, think tanks and media archives. The findings of this paper reflect how academic freedom is understood in Georgia and two major threats to its exercise in universities, namely, interference from external politics and internal managerialism. We argue that academic freedom as a concept does not yet have its own place in Georgia's higher education system, protected de jure but with different de facto realities. The paper sheds light on how Soviet legacies of self‐censorship, hidden mechanisms of control and a culture of conformity continue to create tensions inside universities and an environment in which academic freedom cannot flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Venus has always been one of the priorities of the space research program in Russia. The history of successful investigations of Venus in the Soviet Union is primarily associated with delivering a whole series of spacecraft to it and implementing the first ever landing on its surface. In the last few years, the study of Venus in astrobiological direction has been rapidly developing. To date, a fairly large number of theoretical papers have been published, the main purpose of which is to estimate the possibility of the existence of living organisms on Venus. The most likely ecosystem, in which Earth-type organisms could develop, is considered to be a dense cloud layer of Venus. It is supposed that, in this layer, hypothetical microbial communities could exist in aerosols being a concentrated aqueous solution of sulfuric acid. Microorganisms in such a specific air habitat are to be exposed to several extreme factors at once, the main among which are very low values of pH and water activity. The principal strategies for survival under these conditions should be the availability of effective biochemical mechanisms of resistance to the impact of adverse environmental factors and the use of all possible ways of extracting energy in such an ecosystem to maintain the biomass of organisms at a level for stable reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish religious life in the Soviet Union is typically the subject of dichotomous depictions that offer only a superficial rendering of this rich and complex environment. This paper aims to complicate this image by pointing out several religious thinkers who engaged with Communist and Marxist ideas and incorporated them into their religious thought, while upholding rabbinic culture. Among the figures and themes examined are Alter Hilewitz's (1906–1994) Hasido-Marxism, Rabbi Avraham Yosef Guttman's (1870–1940) crisis of faith, and Shmuel Alexandrov's (1865–1941) use of Russian Nietzscheanism. Alexandrov was also the narrator who revealed these fascinating ideas to us in a rare collection of his letters, which possesses both a philosophical and a theological nature. These letters, which have received very little attention in previous studies, provide a small window into the conflictual world of rabbis and yeshiva students in the first decade of the Soviet Union. Reviewing the ideas generated in a struggle to make sense of one of the great crises of modern Judaism, and pondering questions of historical perspective and how empathy may distort it, this article wishes to go beyond the image of a defensive preservation of religious life and to re-envision this unique and innovative period of Jewish thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the end of the USSR, the mobility infrastructure in Tajikistan followed a trajectory of decay. Transport systems had to be reorganized, mobility practices had to be reshaped, and some areas became less accessible. Meanwhile, new international connections have emerged thanks to new political openness. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2022, this paper offers an empirical analysis of the nexus between remoteness and connectivity by looking at the evolution of physical infrastructure in Tajikistan's VMKB province over the past thirty years and discussing the rather contradictory yet simultaneous processes of internationalization and marginalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reexamines African socialism, the Ghanaian political economy under Kwame Nkrumah (1957–1966), Nkrumah's intellectual genealogical heritage, and African intellectual history as a genre that transcends the bounds of the Atlantic world. First, I sketch the lives of Black Marxists—Nkrumah, C.L.R. James, George Padmore, and Bankole Awoonor-Renner—from Africa and the Americas, to the Soviet Union, to England and Ghana, to rethink Black bodies not merely as theorists of racial and decolonial questions but also as sites, carriers, and manipulators of political-economic theories. In constructing connected and overlapping histories, I demonstrate how controversial and contested Soviet ideas became key sites of interrogation among global Black Marxists. By reframing travel as an intellectual process, I reconceptualize the movements of Black Marxists to the USSR, the United States, England, and Ghana as critical intellectual and historical processes in their understandings of Lenin's state capitalist ideas. Second, I revisit the Ghanaian political economy under Nkrumah to argue that combining socialist and capitalist development paths was not a contradictory Marxian policy but was embedded within Black Marxist understandings of Lenin's state capitalist ideas. In so doing, I argue that we must situate African political ideologies not solely within a romanticized Afrocentric origin but as ideas that emerge out of contemporaneous global political and ideological struggles. I draw on global Black Marxists' correspondence; newspaper and magazine articles; British and American espionage files; and Ghanaian, American, and British state and inter-state departmental documents in imperial, colonial, and postcolonial British, Ghanaian, American, and Russian archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic police reform models dominate discussions on police reform in non-Western contexts. Researchers and practitioners often attribute reform failings to personnel and institutional failure within police organisations, the weakness of formal external institutions of control and accountability, lack of inclusion of, or customisation to, hybrid forms of governance or a failure to address social injustice more broadly. Drawing on analysis of political and police transformation in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia this paper suggests low state capacity and authoritarian and neo-patrimonial politics present more prominent barriers to DPR. In low capacity states police pay is insufficient and bureaucratic control weak. Formal reforms have little influence over the police who are influenced by organised crime and corrupt police leaders and politicians. Authoritarian and neo-patrimonial elites often stymie reform initiatives which undermine their political and economic interests. Full DPR is thus unlikely without increasing state capacity and political elite will and capacity to democratise control of the police. But contrary to democratisation being key to successful reform the relationship between regime type and reform outcomes is more nuanced. Partial reform is possible where a partially authoritarian/neo-patrimonial regime has the ability to improve police effectiveness and clampdown on corruption and prioritises these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]