post-Soviet Research Articles

Myśl Karola Marksa w interpretacji Włodzimierza Lenina jako czynnik motywujący antyreligijne ustawodawstwo sowieckie po Rewolucji Październikowej

The thought of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin were legal and social in the socialist states. In the text, the author discusses the assumptions propagated by the said authors, focusing on the understanding of the relationship between state and religion and religious freedom. The proponent of state atheism in the post-revolutionary reality was Karl Marx. Seizing power in Russia, after 1918 the Bolsheviks decided to incorporate Marxian thought into the legislation of the still-forming Soviet state. In the article, the author emphasizes the considerable degree to which the founders of the Soviet state were inspired by the thought of Karl Marx and, on the basis of this ideological background, presents the legal as well as actual actions that led to the creation of an atheist state and a state that fought against all manifestations of state religiosity.

The Migrant Mother’s Silence in Her Mother Tongue as a Mothering Strategy

Abstract Historically silenced, literary mothers’ voices are finally now being given their due, but it is noteworthy that migrant mothers’ literary voices are yet to be fully heard. This essay focuses on literary representations of migrant mothers who refuse to speak their own mother tongue to their children. It looks at two texts by women writers originating directly or indirectly from two post-Soviet Baltic states, Estonia and Lithuania. The texts in question are the novel Stalinin lehmät (Stalin’s Cows) (2003) by Sofi Oksanen and the essay “Motinų tylėjimas” (“The Silence of the Mothers”) (2004) by Dalia Staponkutė. Drawing on postcolonial theory, memory studies, and transnational feminist theory, I suggest that the migrant mother’s silence in her own mother tongue connotes several unarticulated realities: the trauma of colonization, the negotiation of post-Soviet migrant femininity, and patriarchal gender regimes. I argue that the migrant mothers represented in both texts withhold their mother tongue as a mothering strategy designed to socialize their children to successfully negotiate the transnational, multilingual spaces they will navigate as adults.

"FAR TOO HEAVY TO BEAR...": THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN-LANGUAGE POST-MIGRANT PROSE

The experience of genocide usually locks the mouths of the victims' descendants for two generations. It is usually communicated in the third or grandchildren's generation. The literary expression of this externalization is a prose that oscillates between fiction and factography, which emerged already decades ago in the large Armenian diaspora communities of the USA and France and is now very widespread. Peter Balakian's Black Dogs of Fate and Micheline Aharonian Marcom's genocide trilogy are probably the most internationally known examples. In Germany, the evolution was considerably delayed. There is no quantitatively large Armenian diaspora here. The community of around 60,000 people is also heterogeneous in terms of their countries of origin. Most of them originally came from Turkey; in the meantime, numerous Armenians from the post-Soviet space have joined them. The Young Turks’ genocide of 1915/6 was first addressed in German by authors of Jewish origin, namely Franz Werfel and, after WW2, Edgar Hilsenrath. Since 2019, four novels by authors of Armenian descent have been published: Katerina Poladjan’s Hier sind Löwen (2019), Laura Cwiertnia’s Auf der Straße heißen wir anders (2022), Marc Sinan’s Gleißendes Licht (2023) and Corinna Kulenkamp’'s Aprikosenzeit, dunkel (2023). With the exception of K. Poladjan’s novel, these are all debut novels, which is at the same time indicative of the importance of the topic for the authors. The genre hybridity of these works, which combine the features of family, coming-to-age and travel novels, is likewise characteristic. As a subgenre of German-language post-migrant prose, these novels are about the authors' or their protagonists' confrontation with their hybrid descent from Armenian-German or Turkish-Armenian homes, about identity and belonging, as well as the confrontation with the post-Soviet state of Armenia, which remains alien and incomprehensible to the authors or their protagonists, just as the acceptance of the genocide as an obligation to remember and a legacy seems difficult to bear. In this article, dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the heroic novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, I intend to describe the peculiarities and weaknesses of the recent post-genocidal remembrance prose in the German language on the basis of the four novels mentioned above.

Architecture of the administrative centre of Kharkiv, the capital – laboratory for the creation of the New Man: from concept to implementation

The interest in addressing social and political problems through architecture entered the professional discourse of Ukrainian architects in the 1920s. The creation of a new Soviet man became one of the central ideas of the early Soviet state. As a result of the planned transformation of social and family life, there was an active search for new typologies and concepts in both residential and public architecture. The creation of "social condensers," as a means of spatially materializing the idea of shaping a new Soviet man through architecture, became one of the most significant leitmotifs in the formation of architectural and urban planning ensembles in the capital city of Kharkiv, Kharkiv is known not only as a site for creating world renowned modernist complexes, but also as a venue for implementing social experiments. This article explores an example of such a "social condenser" through the ensemble of the Dzerzhynskyj Square (now Svobody Square) district, featuring its unique residential block-combines, as well as architectural concepts that were not realized in their originally conceived form.

The Evolution of Washington's Strategy towards Central Asia

The article examines the evolution of Washington's policy towards the countries of Central Asia. The reasons for the growing US interest in the Central Asian countries, as well as its recently extremely proactive policy against the backdrop of a fierce confrontation with Russia, have been identified. A step-by-step analysis of Washington’s position regarding this region, together with the old and new formats of both bilateral and regional cooperation, is given in the context of the Global South agenda becoming extremely urgent against the backdrop of increasing competition for the region carried out by its key players – China, Russia, and the United States. At the same time, the role and significance of Central Asia could change depending on the place this region will occupy in the constantly changing scale of US priorities while implementing its policy towards the post-Soviet space.

"Invisible Force" or Diplomatic Powerlessness? (American Diplomacy Through the Eyes of CIA Director William Burns)

The memoirs of William Burns, the American diplomat and director of the Central Intelligence Agency, paint a wide panorama of U.S. foreign policy. These memoirs are particularly relevant because they document the role of the United States in destabilizing the world order that emerged following the Second World War, including its participation in fomenting crises in the post-Soviet space that led to the development of the Ukrainian crisis and the beginning of a special military operation by Russia. The memoirs are not only the testimony of an informed eyewitness but also a valuable source on the modern history of international relations, since they are supplemented with declassified diplomatic documents of the American State Department. These documents, now part of the academic record, clarify both the patterns of American foreign policy behavior and the destructive role of the United States in numerous crises, many of which, according to the documents presented, were predicted by W. Burns as inevitable long before the escalation occurred.

U.S. vs. Russia: Cyber «Drang nach Osten»

In June 2022, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, Paul Nakasone, disclosed that his soldiers had conducted offensive cyberattacks against Russia before the Special military operation in Ukraine began. These so-called “hunt forward” operations are part of USCYBERCOM’s doctrine of persistent engagement. This doctrine involves the personnel of the Cyber Nation Mission Forces deploying to partner countries to work with their cyber defenders in their most critical networks and computer systems. Their mission is to search for and degrade enemy activities, while also researching their tools and tactics in cyberspace. This doctrine is one of Nakasone’s key innovations in Cyber Command’s course of action. Previously, U.S. cyber operations required authorization from the U.S. President. This restriction made actions like persistent engagement and hunt forward operations nearly impossible, as they require extensive activities within other countries’ networks even before a cyberattack is prepared. It is impractical to expect the President to approve every such request. Nakasone changed this by removing the requirement for presidential authorization. Today, this allows Cyber Command to conduct such operations - both defensive and offensive - much more broadly, and they are taking full advantage of this opportunity. The problem lies in the sphere of international law - both in the field of the law of war (jus in bello) and the right to war (jus ad bellum). U.S. politicians often claim that cyber operations can achieve strategic goals without crossing the threshold of armed conflict. In any other domain actions with similar effects could provoke war but not in cyberspace. This feature is its main advantage and the reason the U.S. sabotages other countr ies’ initiatives (particularly Russian) to establish a legal regime for state use of cyberspace. However, there is no consensus among U.S. specialists about the legal basis that legitimizes such operations against another country, both internationally and domestically. Yet, this ambiguity seems to work in the U.S. favor. In fact, U.S. soldiers have attacked another country’s (Russian) territory and this has not led to a direct war between Russia and the U.S. U.S. officials consider the hunt forward operation experience in Ukraine as both successful and useful for refining U.S. strategies in cyberspace, including the National Cybersecurity Strategy and the DoD Cyber Strategy. They plan to use such tools more broadly against Russia. Currently, the U.S. is actively working in the Post-Soviet area against Russia to disrupt Russia’s national interests. Among other things, Washington is attempting to coerce Central Asian states into alignment with U.S. interests. Hunt forward operations are an obvious tool of the United States, which Russia will most likely have to counteract there.

Development of the Northern Sea Route as a space for entrepreneurship and trade

Since ancient times, travelers, discoverers, entrepreneurs and traders have sought to find the most rational route from one area of the globe to another. Reducing distances in space means reducing commercial transactions in time, accelerating trade turnover, saving money, and increasing profits. Such circumstances have long stimulated economic participants to search for new transport routes for trade communications. They were looking for the shortest and most convenient routes from European countries to the riches of the countries of the East, India and China. Land and water routes through the regions of the North were developed. The development of northern routes began a long time ago. Already from the 6th–9th centuries, the settlement of the Eastern Slavs in northern Europe took place. From the 8th century, the Slavs began to develop the White Sea region. From the 12th century, the areas of the Kholmogory region were mentioned; Kochi Novgorodians and Pomors already walked along the western parts of the Arctic Ocean. Since the 16th century, the British and Dutch have sought to pave the way to the East through the northern seas, and trade, political and cultural ties between Russia and Western countries have been formed. Trading companies emerged; the British and Dutch, through joint–stock companies, attracted broad masses of people and their capital to colonial policy, which for a long time became the key to effective colonial activity. The Russian Empire and the young Soviet state continued to explore the Northern Sea Route.

Energy and inflation crises in Romania and Slovenia: different institutions, similar responses

The 2021–2022 inflation crisis in the EU offers an opportunity to examine how diverse industrial relations systems respond to similar macroeconomic shocks. This article compares Romania and Slovenia, two post-communist countries whose industrial relations systems are poles apart. The expectation was that, in contrast to the enfeebled Romanian system, Slovenia would not only resort to social dialogue but also adopt comprehensive measures to shield workers from the dual energy- and food-related shock. Yet, there was less divergence than anticipated. In particular, while unilateralism took place in Romania because of the weakness of its unions post-2011, the interruption of tripartite negotiations in Slovenia was the result of the social partners’ actions and not a deliberate government strategy. Hence, while confirming that governments play the main role in supporting social dialogue, this article suggests that the social partners also carefully ponder the costs and benefits of their involvement in tripartite policy-making.

“Everything has to be done in the Polish way”: creativity barriers experienced by innovators in a post-Soviet society

Innovators from post-Soviet transition societies experience barriers to creativity different from those experienced by inventors in developed countries. Since there has been little research into this subject so far, this article is an attempt to fill this gap. The aim of the study is to explore the mindset and environmental creativity hurdles experienced by Polish innovators as the representatives of post-Soviet states. The data was collected through individual in-depth interviews. Sixteen innovators from Białystok, a city in the Eastern part of Poland, were interviewed. The findings show that innovators experience both individual and environmental hurdles in their creativity actions. In the case of mindset barriers, the feeling of low self-esteem and lack of appropriate knowledge are listed as the most significant barriers, especially at the beginning of the career. The study has shown that although individual barriers hinder creative work, innovators make successful attempts to overcome them. Environmental blocks, however, have the most detrimental influence on innovators’ creativity and are the most difficult to overcome. Among these barriers innovators mention the characteristics of homo sovieticus mentality, such as informal relations, nepotism, and lack of trust among academics and businesspeople. The study supports the hypothesis that the post-Soviet culture largely determines the low innovation level in Eastern European countries.

New Breakaway Parties in Slovakia: Exploring Intra-party Democracy Shifts

Many new parties are electorally succeeding across European party systems, including in post-communist countries. This is especially true in Slovakia, where it is accompanied by another very specific phenomenon, which in our perspective defines recent parliamentary elections – the prevalence of new breakaway parties. These newly formed parties created by splitting from parliamentary parties are now competing alongside them in early parliamentary elections. The 2020-2023 period, in addition to seeing the fall of governments, and a general political crisis and instability, was also characterized by frequent party factionalism. During this period, turbulent development within SMER-SD, ĽSNS and OĽaNO translated into the formation of three new parties – HLAS-SD, Republika, and the Democrats, which represent our case studies. The aim of our paper is to analyse how these new breakaway parties differ from their original parties organizationally, in the processes associated with intra-party democracy (IPD). We empirically explore their leadership selection, candidate selection and membership policies. The existing data (based on the Populism and Political Parties Database) indicate that their three parent parties are highly personalized with low IPD. The findings of our comparative analysis reveal that the new breakaway parties have incorporated more transparent approaches to intraparty processes compared to their parent parties. However, concerning candidate selection, they have not embraced greater inclusiveness than the parties they originated from. Overall, despite a noticeable trend towards intraparty depersonalization, the opportunity for a broader membership base to participate in the decision making process remains largely unrealized.

“Death in Moscow” by Yuz Aleshkovsky: mortal images, narrative strategy, genre-thematic features

INTRODUCTION. The research is devoted to the study of genre-thematic and narrative peculiarities of Yuz Aleshkovsky’s story “Death in Moscow”. The purpose of the work is to reveal the specifics of thanatological discourse and discourse of political and ethnic anecdote, which form a peculiar poetics and aesthetics of fantastic and mystical narrative.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The material of the study is the little-studied Yuz Aleshkovsky’s novella “Death in Moscow” (1985). The key method is the method of holistic analysis of the artwork, and we also used the motive and narrative approaches.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. It is established that the central plot episodes of the story perform a carnival function, while the artistic methods determine the author’s strategy. At the narrative level, it is embodied in the interchangeability and identity of thirdperson and first-person narration as a minuscule technique and the alleged “removal” of the author’s mask in the use of stream-of-consciousness techniques. At the plot level, these are inserted anecdotes and short stories that satirically depict images of Soviet power, motifs of death, antipochevanism, and cosmopolitanism.CONCLUSION. In Yuz Aleshkovsky’s story, the technique of reducing the images of Soviet power to the realm of material and corporeal bottom becomes not only a leading technique, but also acquires a ritual sacredness: on the one hand, the writer restores the balance of mythological and everyday life, public and private, near and far. On the other hand, in opposition to the official mythology, he creates his own mythology – the mythology of the folk anecdote, a novel-anecdote, devoted to the laughing comprehension of the death of the dying and dying Soviet state.

Family Relations of Muslims in the Post-Soviet Space: Main Features and Approaches to Psychological Counseling

The family relations of Muslims under present-day conditions are undergoing a signifi cant transformation. The increase in the number of divorces makes it necessary to look for the ways to resolve family confl icts and to harmonize marital relations. In this regard, the requirements for the qualifi cation of family psychologists consulting Muslim couples and families are increasing. It is not enough to master one or another method of family counseling for working with Muslim families. The most important role is played by the formation of the specialist's intercultural competence, as well as by mastering the knowledge and understanding the ethnic, religious and regional specifi cs of the clients. The culture of Muslim ethnic groups is collectivistic, which aff ects the relationships both within a married couple and within an extended family, whose role in Muslim communities is still important. In the article, this thesis is illustrated by the analysis of the author's practical case of family counseling. The author, based on the consideration of ethnic and religious values underlying Muslim family relations, examines the most eff ective psychotherapeutic approaches in working with Muslim families and couples.

Smart Visegrad - How modern and dynamic are the local governments of the V4 regions

The megatrend of building Smart Cities in the context of sustainable development of local governments is highly topical. The movement and intensity of Smart City solutions are proportional to the need to eliminate serious global and regional problems. The most pressing of these relates to socio-economic impact. Therefore, the most attractive areas of interest include infrastructure, environment, management, and governance. The geopolitical context and the vision of a sophisticated, efficient, high-quality, and beneficial municipality leads to the production of economic, social, and environmental benefits also in postcommunist European countries. The effects of synergies of high technology and reflection on the virtuous behaviour of people and society are prerequisites for the desired socioeconomic development and sustainability of countries. Promoting the paradigm of multisubject and multi-sectoral involvement of actors contributes to the performance of regions and enterprises at the same time. The primary impetus for writing the article was the ambition to identify the significant attributes of the Smart City concept and to assess the propensity of V4 countries to address this issue. Within the framework of the study, the analytical methods used were the investigation of the current state of the art, the search of available relevant literature and case studies, the summarisation of results on the basis of induction, deduction, mathematical-statistical calculations and other methods allowing us to draw correct conclusions. The most significant of these conclusions is that there are no significant differences in the propensity of Visegrad Four (V4) countries to be smart. On the contrary, the interest in improving and developing the country, the unit, and the society can be considered a global phenomenon.

Multi-vector Approach in the Foreign Policy of the Post-Soviet Countries: Current Issues and Trends

Multi-vectorism as a principle of foreign policy has been implemented by the CIS countries since the mid-1990s. Over 30 years, experience has been accumulated that allows us to judge the basis of real policy and multi-vectorism as a discourse in the information field. The attitude towards multi-vectorism in the foreign policy of the post-Soviet countries is very different, ranging from purely positive (mainly from the country’s political experts) to extremely skeptical (the Russian political science school). The article presents the results of the expert session of the Center for Research of International Humanitarian Communications of the Patrice Lumumba RUDN University “Multi-vectorism in Foreign Policy: Current Problems”, which took place on October 8, 2024 and discussed the problems of multi-vectorism: what are the limits of multi-vectorism as a means of maneuvering of post-Soviet political elites in the context of the emerging multipolar model of international relations, are common rules of the game possible for countries of different economic importance, what is the significance of situational alliances and temporary coalitions in the context of multi-vectorism. Based on the results of the discussion, the researchers came to the conclusion that multi-vectorism is an effective tactical resource of major playersmoderators, leaders of integration associations and military blocs, used to achieve strategic objectives in the areas of memorial policy, macro-regional security, humanitarian and economic cooperation. With such a balance of forces, middle-level countries risk becoming led and controlled objects of foreign policy ambitions of third countries.

The role of L.M. Karakhan in the Chinese policy of the Soviet Union (1923–1926)

In the 1920s, the young Soviet state pursued several, sometimes mutually exclusive, goals in its policy towards China. On the one hand, the Soviet leadership did its best to achieve international recognition and sought to protect its vital interests. On the other hand, it actively promoted the idea of a world revolution. Under those circumstances, the country’s foreign ministry needed experienced, flexible, and pragmatic diplomats. In this regard, the activities of L.M. Karakhan, who was sent as a Soviet emissary to the Republic of China to address these sensitive issues, are of particular interest. The figure of L.M. Karakhan is all the more remarkable because, being one of the architects of the USSR’s foreign policy towards China, he himself has not received much attention in either Soviet or Russian historiography. On the basis of new archival documents and Chinese primary sources the paper attempts to give a comprehensive assessment of L.M. Karakhan’s tenure first as a plenipotentiary and then as an ambassador of the USSR to China. The first sections consider the tasks of L.M. Karakhan’s diplomatic mission in China and the vicissitudes of the negotiations on the Soviet-Chinese agreement on the establishment of diplomatic relations. To that end, the Soviet diplomat, following the directives from Moscow, flexibly maneuvered between various groupings of Chinese elites and resisted the pressure of other great powers’ representatives. The following sections examine L.M. Karakhan’s activities as a Soviet ambassador. The author concludes that L.M. Karakhan consistently defended the national interests of the USSR, skillfully combining a fine diplomatic game and assertiveness, even rigidity at times. The latter was vividly manifested in the most challenging issues of Soviet-Chinese relations, such as disputes over the status of the Chinese Eastern Railway and Outer Mongolia. At the same time, the ambassador took an active part in organizing and supporting the revolutionary movement in China. In fact, L.M. Karakhan served as a central coordinator of the Soviet aid to the Kuomintang, determining both its forms and substance. The author concludes that L.M. Karakhan proved himself not merely as an agent of the Soviet leadership, but also as a politician in its own right capable to effectively address a wide range of tasks, some of which had not originally been intended by his mission. That said it is worth mentioning that the assertive, tough style of the Soviet diplomat often raised a lot of criticism among foreign representatives, since it was at odds with the declared USSR intentions to break with the foreign policy practices of tsarist Russia.

Interethnic relations in the Nazi-occupied North Caucasus: a case study of the Mountain Jewish communities in Bogdanovka and Nalchik

ABSTRACT The article examines the ways in which both local Indigenous ethnic groups and non-Indigenous Slavs are remembered in the testimonies of Mountain Jewish survivors. Based on official reports from Soviet state institutions, memoirs and interviews with survivors, the article discusses the involvement of German administration and individual collaborators in the extermination of some Mountain Jewish communities, as well as the efforts of the local non-Jewish population in the rescue of others. It provides an analysis of these events through two case studies: the village of Bogdanovka in the Stavropol region and the town of Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria. By focusing on the multiethnic North Caucasus, the article highlights the complex relationships between Jews and other ethnic groups during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.

The “KGB Wanted List” and the Evolving Soviet Pursuit of Defectors

Abstract The 1969 edition of a document known as the “KGB Wanted List” was smuggled to the West in 1972 by a Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) officer who defected. The KGB periodically compiled the list to target people around the world whom the Soviet government accused of violating Soviet law, especially through defection. More than four decades after the 1969 list became available in the West, the Security Service of Ukraine—the main counterintelligence agency in independent Ukraine—declassified a later edition of the KGB list, dated 1979. This article compares these two editions of the list, analyzing the individuals included (and excluded) in each, the judicial sentences passed against subjects, and the KGB organizations responsible for handling their cases. The article shows that the Soviet view of defectors evolved throughout the Cold War and that the KGB was far from omnipotent even on Soviet territory. It further shows that post-Soviet Russia's pursuit of defectors bears many similarities to practices of the Soviet era, with equivalents of the KGB Wanted List reported in Russia today.

Modern Tasks of the Union State and the Problems of Cross-border Trade between Russia and Belarus in the General Management Hierarchy

The general low efficiency of integration in the post-Soviet space has one obvious exception — the Union State. At the same time, certain problems exist in the Union State. Successfully solving common problems of foreign trade, the parties do not work effectively enough in the direction of cross-border cooperation and cross-border trade. The European experience of cross-border cooperation and trade cannot be fully applied in Russia and Belarus; however, the best practices of Europe have been successfully worked out for a very long time and can be applied within the framework of the Union State. The special status of the border between Russia and Belarus has some similarities with the formal borders of the EU. Accordingly, cross-border trade can be proposed as a means of developing adjacent areas.

Vietnamese Migrants in Modern Russia: Resettlement, Institutions and Social Boundaries

In the post-Soviet period, migrants from Asian countries were unevenly distributed across Russian regions, which influenced the emergence of ethnic markets in the 1990s. In order to advance the field of migration and border studies, it is important to understand why communities of Vietnamese rather than Chinese or Central Asian migrants have formed in some cities. The presence of migrants suggested designating certain places with ethnic terms, etc. The paper is intended to answer the following questions: what is the geography of the settlement of migrants from Vietnam, in what cities and why exactly were Vietnamese markets formed and what migration institutions arose thanks to them. The archival documents from the post-Soviet era, and the results of the Autor’s field work in Magnitogorsk, Orenburg and Ufa made the source base for the research. The materials collected in Moscow, Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg provided great assistance. The methodological basis of the manuscript is the theory of mobility. Vietnamese communities were formed by migrants who did not leave Russian cities after 1991. The Vietnamese in these cities were engaged in commercial entrepreneurship, established Vietnamese markets and social infrastructure, invited compatriots through these institutions, and provided various kinds of support to “their own” people. However, the economic instability in Russia led to the immobility of the Vietnamese, both intentionally or involuntarily, which had a profound impact on the geography of the Vietnamese settlement in Russia and the ways of organizing social ties.