Journal articles on the topic 'Propaganda, Soviet – Social aspects – Uzbekistan'

Much has been made in the social sciences of the ambiguity of nationalism in Central Asia, where not only the boundaries between republics but between nations, languages, and peoples were drawn by the Soviet state. The similar ambiguity of Central Asian religiosity, however, has remained largely ignored. Perhaps religiosity, unlike the more recent idea of nationalism, is considered too fixed a construct for the modern and artificially created states of Central Asia. The division of religions into specific sects, each with its own explicit doctrine and precepts, would seem to preclude definitional necessity. Yet in the 1980s it was religiosity, malleable and stubborn, which proved as essential to the decline of the Soviet Union as did nationalism. As a vital component of identity, religion can exist without any clergy, place of worship, or understanding of sacred text, much as a nation can exist without a state or a government. The illusory aspects of religion, the comforts and mystery of rite and ritual, are as difficult for a state to control as national sentiment, and often prove the impetus behind the latter.

The article presents the results of studying some aspects of demographic and social relations among the Kazakhs of Uzbekistan, who were subjected to assimilation in the post-Soviet period. The decrease in the quantitative indicators of the Kazakh ethnic group was caused by the migration outflow to Kazakhstan, where the policy of repatriation of ethnic Kazakhs and their socio-cultural adaptation is being pursued. Despite the declaration and implementation of a policy of broad tolerance towards ethnic and confessional groups in Independent Uzbekistan, under the presidency of I. Karimov, ethnicity was eroded, which led to reduction in the number of educational institutions with the Kazakh language of instruction, the representation of Kazakhs in power structures, etc. Under the new president Sh. Mirziyoev, some positive trends in the state of the Kazakh diaspora in Uzbekistan were outlined.

Visual propaganda played an enormous role in the history of the twentieth century. Unlike the propaganda of nineteenth century, it was aimed not only at educated classes in the imperial centres, but also at subaltern masses living in the colonies of great powers, including the vast territories in the east and south of the former Russian Empire. Posters created for (and with the assistance of) Muslims between the two world wars in the Soviet Orient (i.e., in the Volga region, Crimea, Urals, and Siberia, on the Caucasus and in the Central Asia) represent an enormous and still poorly studied layer in the history of Soviet propaganda. So far, the posters have been studied primarily in the context of art history. But the creation of visual propaganda is critical for historical reconstructions as well. It is more important to understand posters’ language, historical context, attitude to public policy, cultural background, in other words—the discourse of propaganda. This is a part of life, even if semiofficial, the loss of which would simplify and impoverish the picture of the past. Discursive analysis of poster art allows one to understand the relationship between knowledge and power in society, the role of different social strata in its reproduction, and the aspects of perception and rejection of official propaganda.

The economic and social changes in modern society have resulted in intensive and extensive migrant activity. The article contains a review of social, psychological, and gender aspects of migration from three countries of Central Asia (former Soviet republic)—Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—in Russia (St. Petersburg). The main objective of our study was to identify socio-psychological mechanisms of migration from Central Asia—the general and specific peculiarities of the acculturation process of migrant workers. Participants in the study were labor migrants from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The research was conducted in St. Petersburg. In total, 98 people aged from 19 to 42 years old took part in the research (median age = 32.26, SD = 3.44), among them, women made up 44% and men made up 56%. Three ethnic groups were represented in the sample: Kyrgyz people (34 persons), Tajik people (32 persons), and Uzbek people (32 persons). The research found both general and specific features related to certain ethnic groups. The research results showed that there were significant differences between the migrants from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan by the following acculturation indicators: number of social contacts (friends) among representatives of their own ethnicity and among the Russian-speaking population, type of acculturation strategy, degree of life satisfaction, cultural and economic safety, and anxiety level.

The article presents an analysis of repressive operations conducted in the USSR in 1933 on the example of the Moscow region. The author examines the main repression campaigns of this year using the Communist Party, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the OGPU directives and decrees, which accompanied mass arrests by political reasons. The study of social aspects is based on archival investigative cases stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (fund 10035). The analysis shows that the repressive operations clearly followed the instructions of the central authorities. Mass convictions by extrajudicial sentences of the OGPU “troikas” in the Moscow region mostly took place before the signing of the instruction of May 8th, 1933, which ceased mass evictions of peasants and restricted mass arrests. Until that time, the main targets of terror were immigrants from Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Volga region, and the fact of dekulakization was crucial in sentencing. Workers suffered the most from the repressions. They were yesterday's peasants who fled from dekulakization, often living in Moscow without documents in poverty and in constant need. Their “anti-Soviet agitation” expressed dissatisfaction with the living and working conditions. Young people carried on “anti-Soviet propaganda” in discussions about the current situation in the country. Most of the victims were semi-literate.

In 1951 the first colour film in was produced Soviet Estonia–Valgus Koordis (“Light in Koordi village”). This never-before-seen medium applied effective ideological symbols to visualise the power of collective effort with the scope of difficulties building up the new life in a freshly established collective farm (kolkhoz). It was straightforward propaganda to demonstrate that in spite of difficulties, collective farming was the only correct way to achieve prosperity in the countryside. The theme of the film was to show the goodness of Stalinist improvements in a poor post-war rural community at the end of the 1940s. In a very simple manner, topics such as nationalism, the class struggle, socialist ideology, kulaks, collective ownership, mechanisation of agriculture and large-scale land improvements were presented. To capture the wider audience and to increase social impact, the film also starred the rising opera star Georg Ots, still considered as one of the greatest Estonian opera singers ever. In addition to ideologically charged films, a type of propagandist short documentary, the ringvaade (newsreel) was produced in Soviet Estonia. These concentrated on various aspects ofSoviet lifestyle, aiming to demonstrate the achievements of collectiveideology, and the high morale of the Soviet working class. We studied these and other examples in order to examine the range of themes andmotifs presented in them, focusing on the ideological impact on the rural landscape caused by mechanisation, forest management and land melioration. What is revealed is an attempt to persuade the new kolkhozniki (collective farmers) of the benefits of the new system – which, ironically, had dispossessed many of them of their own farms which they had built up in the inter-war years (and which were restored to them after the collapse of the Soviet system in the 1990s).

The article considers the socio-political life of the workers and employees of the military-industrial complex in Western Siberia, which is one of three such complexes in the USSR that supplied the Red Army with military equipment and ammunition. It was established that the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (CPSU (b), giving great attention to the regions of their location, in the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee added some new structural units, whose influence embraced all aspects of socio-political life of the workers and employees in these regions. Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee promptly controlled and supervised the work of local Party and Soviet bodies, organizations and institutions in this direction.The major focus is on the study of the activities of the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformbureau), press, radio, cinema, lecturers, propagandists and agitators, who informed the workers and employees about the most important events at the front and in the rear, formed the social and political attitudes. It was found that the greatest role was played by outstanding artists, theatrical, musical and artistic intelligentsia who, through their presentations, shows and performances of the anti-fascist orientation raising the spiritual forces of workers, engineers and technicians, inspired people to labor feats. Through the combination of these events, organized by the central and local Party authorities, the government and local executive authorities shaped social and political consciousness, patriotism of workers, engineers and technicians, to forge the weapon of victory over fascism.

The two-decade-long U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan ended in August 2021 after a chaotic departure of the NATO troops. Power in Kabul transferred back to the Taliban, the political force the United States and its allies tried to defeat. In its failure to achieve a lasting change, the Western mission in Afghanistan is similar to that of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. These two missions in Afghanistan had many things in common, specifically their unsuccessful counterinsurgency efforts. However, both managed to achieve limited success in their attempts to impose their style of governance on Afghanistan as well. The current study compares and contrasts some of the crucial aspects of counterinsurgency operations conducted by the Soviet and Western forces during their respective missions, such as special forces actions, propaganda activities, and dealing with crucial social issues. Interestingly, when the Soviets withdrew in 1988, they left Afghanistan worse off, but the US-backed opposition forces subsequently made the situation even worse. On the other hand, the Western mission left the country better off in 2021, and violence subsided when power in the country was captured by the Taliban, which the United States has opposed.

Modernity alongside with new technologies development, fundamental changes in the printing industry and informatization of society presented the mankind with such an invention as propaganda. It became an integral part of authoritarian and totalitarian political regimes of the XXth century. However, as a tool of consciousness manipulation, it was actively used by the empires during the "long" XIXth century. In the conditions of the First World War propaganda played a significant role in the mobilization processes and in the formation of the enemy's image. The article attempts to assess the effectiveness of the propaganda during the First World War. The article examines the researches that analyze the events of the war from the point of view of Soviet, modern Ukrainian and foreign historiography and contain descriptions of the propaganda campaign on the front line and in the rear. The state of modern historical research is highlighted and the prospects of further research are indicated. The study of the experience of the First World War and the information component of the fighting can be useful, given the fact that the Russian Federation today uses ideological stamps of that period.The analysis of existing studies on the issues of the First World War in general and its propaganda component in particular proves an increasing interest in the investigation of information warfare topic. Since 2014, the number of studies devoted to the First World War has increased in domestic and foreign research. The Ukrainian regions were a part of Austria-Hungary and Russia, so the usage of the Ukrainian national question in the propaganda of those states was significant. However, the issue of the propaganda war between the two empires is not covered comprehensively.The first study on this subject was of general practical character. The first foreign scholars who examined propaganda were mass communication specialists. For Soviet historical science, the priority task was to study the revolutionary events of 1917 and the period of the civil war. The events of 1914-1918 were interpreted only as an imperialist war, their study was conducted tendentiously. Modern historiography on the First World War reflects the main directions of the European historical school at the beginning of the XXIst century with a focus on social and socio-cultural history. Foreign historiography is represented by Russian, European and American authors. In their research considerable attention is paid to the topic of military psychology and cultural-anthropological aspects of war. The analysis of the extent of the given problem research in the studies of foreign historians suggests a sufficient level of its investigation. Modern historians pay much attention to the ideological aspect, the analysis of visual propaganda. The interest in considering the mechanisms for the formation of images of the enemy, its state and allies increased. A promising object of historical research is the study of the verbal and nonverbal aspects of the propaganda production of both empires.

The key methods of the Ukrainian SSR party authorities to counter the attempts of reviving the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the western Ukrainian regions at the break of the 80s-90s of the XX century were considered. It was noted that in the late 1970s in this region, particularly in Galicia, Greek-Catholic believers and the clergy measurably intensified their activity, which was evident mainly in houses of worship attendance, traditional rites observance, letters issued to the Council for Religious Affairs of the Soviet Union Ministers with the requirement to register religious communities, clandestine ordination of the clergy, etc. It was stated that in order to counter the religious influence intensification of the Russian Orthodox Church on the population, as well as to prevent negative anti-social manifestations of «remnants of Uniat», local Communist Party committees and Soviet authorities carried out a number of propaganda and mass political events to expose anti-Soviet religious ideology, in particular, «the reactionary role of the Uniat Church in the history of the Ukrainian people». It was noted that the Communist Party of Ukraine took concrete measures to step up anti-religious propaganda in Western Ukrainian regions, as well as to promote the advantages of the Soviet mode of life. It was alleged that the activities of Greek Ca¬tholic believers were discussed at the Council for Religious Affairs of the Soviet Union Ministers sessions of the Ukrainian SSR in the regions of Western Ukraine, party rallies at different levels, meetings of the ideological activists of the regions, seminars of cultural and educational wor¬kers, district and regional atheist conferences. It was noted that the Communist Party of Ukraine paid considerable attention to the media, which should have covered the historical aspects of the «anti-popular backbone of Uniat Church».

From ancient times till nowadays information plays a key role in the political processes. The beginning of XXI century demonstrated the transformation of global security from military to information, social etc. aspects. The widening of pandemic demonstrated the weaknesses of contemporary authoritarian states and the power of human-oriented states. During the World War I the theoretical and practical interest toward political manipulation and political propaganda grew definitely. After 1918 the situation developed very fast and political propaganda became the part of political influence. XX century entered into the political history as the millennium of propaganda. The collapse of the USSR and socialist system brought power to new political actors. The global architecture of the world has changed. Former Soviet republic got independence and tried to separate from Russia. And Ukraine was between them. The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine was the start point for a number of processes in world politics. But the most important was the fact that the role and the place of information as the challenge to world security was reevaluated. The further annexation of Crimea, the attempt to legitimize it by the comparing with the referendums in Scotland and Catalonia demonstrated the willingness of Russian Federation to keep its domination in the world. The main difference between the referendums in Scotland and in Catalonia was the way of Russian interference. In 2014 (Scotland) tried to delegitimised the results of Scottish referendum because they were unacceptable for it. But in 2017 we witness the huge interference of Russian powers in Spain internal affairs, first of all in spreading the independence moods in Catalonia. The main conclusion is that the world has to learn some lessons from Scottish and Catalonia cases and to be ready to new challenges in world politics in a format of information threats.

Статья посвящена анализу роли родильного дома в жизни советской городской жительницы в 1950-1960-е гг. сквозь призму медицинского, социально-психологического и материально-бытового аспекта. В данный период происходит формирование нового образа родильного дома, связанного с представлениями о квалифицированной медицинской помощи, безопасностью родов, а также соответствующими церемониями и традициями при рождении ребёнка. Однако декларируемый официальной советской пропагандой образ родильного дома и реальное положение дел в городских роддомах не всегда соответствовали друг другу. В ходе соотнесения двух этих образов был выявлен ряд противоречий, которые формировали реальный облик и реальное место родильного дома в советском городе в 1950-1960-е гг. The article is devoted to the analysis of the role played by a maternity home in the life of a Soviet urban resident in the 1950s-1960s. through the prism of medical, sociopsychological and material-everyday aspects. During this period, a new image of the maternity hospital is being formed, related to the notions of qualified medical care, the safety of childbirth, as well as the corresponding ceremonies and traditions at the time of the birth of the child. However, the image of the maternity hospital declared by the official Soviet propaganda and the real state of affairs in the city maternity homes did not always correspond to each other. During the correlation of these two images, a number of contradictions were identified that formed the real appearance and the real place of the maternity hospital in the Soviet city in the 1950s-1960s.

The article identifies, interprets and compares the artistic images of «virgin lands workers» formed by the Soviet cinema, which is an important channel of the nation's historical memory and a means of communication of our time. The work gives a detailed description of the problem's historiography. A conclusion is made about the predominance of studies devoted to the social-economic, political and environmental consequences of the virgin lands development. At the same time, despite the growing interest of scientists in the social-cultural aspects of the virgin lands campaign in recent decades, there are very few works analyzing the daily life of virgin landers. The article uses various research methods: retrospective, comparative-historical, semiotic, and discourse analysis. In the course of the research, the author determines the features of virgin lands representation in mass culture as a special social-cultural space, shows the hard fate of virgin lands workers, their attitude to the system of values established in the post-war Soviet society. The main characters of the virgin lands epic represented in the cinematography are young people and «competent leaders», without whom it is impossible to imagine the success of major party projects. The attitude of the virgin lands explorers to the global project can be characterized as ambiguous and multi-layered: virgin land is seen both as an important agricultural project, allowing, under favorable circumstances, to solve the «eternal» grain problem, as an important social elevator for Soviet youth, and as a necessary stage of building communism. The study demonstrates both similarities and differences in the ideological and semantic concepts of the virgin lands filmography, and also reveals a certain transformation of directors' artistic ideas: from the propaganda and heroic message characteristic of 1950s films to the authors' desire to reveal the spiritual and moral potency of the campaign's heroes, characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s films.

Since one of the main characteristics of the science fiction genre is the modelling of future societies, often from the safe distance perspective drawing quite visible parallels with those of the present world, the discussion about political and social topics has been an integral part of the genre since the beginnings. Moreover, since science fiction, especially regarding the subgenre of utopia, allegorically projects a particular ideology in an imaginary world, certain propaganda was also frequent compound in the genre works. These factors were largely responsible for the fact that some political regimes, especially those of the 20th century, made direct and indirect use of science fiction as a powerful tool of ideological propaganda that helped to turn the thinking of readers, especially young people, in the direction favoured by the regime. Still, it must also be remembered that the presence of political ideas in the science fiction works as well as interpretation of these works has always been quite a complicated matter, and science fiction authors frequently found ways to circumnavigate the limitations set by censorship and include messages unflattering to the regime in their works. The paper provides an insight into the aspects of relationship between science fiction and ideology in contemporary literary theory, turns a particular attention to the practical aspects of these relationships as they formed during the 20th century in the literary space of Soviet regime – discussing original works as well as translations and literary criticism; finally, the paper outlines some topical ideological directions visible in modern science fiction works.

The study deals with features of the procedure of the nomination of candidates for workers' deputies during the election campaigns to the Supreme Soviets of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and local governments in the Ukrainian SSR of the post-war period. Legislative, organizational, and propaganda aspects of the process of running for power are analyzed. The procedure did not comply with constitutional norms, as, contrary to the Constitution, only one non-alternative candidate was nominated from each constituency, using non-legal buttons of their selection. Pre-election meetings were defined as one of the fundamental steps of the electoral process and as a ritual element of Soviet ostensible democracy. Pre-election events were controlled by party bodies, which neutralized the democratic principles of forming a representative branch of government and made it impossible to create a truly popular representation. The author defines the criteria that the authorities used for forming the deputy corps of different levels and describes the ideal version of the Soviet representative of the people. Describing officials' difficulties in nominating candidates for deputies to local councils, the author gives statistics and reasons for the rejection of nominees at this level at the election meeting. Difficulties in the organization and conduct of the nomination procedure in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR due to the prevalence of anti-Soviet sentiment in the region and the activities of the nationalist underground were noted. It has been observed that every year citizens showed a more and more indifferent attitude to the elections due to the formality and politicization of the election procedure. Moreover, the parliamentary representation formed under party control did not correlate with society's political and social stratification. Keywords: Ukrainian SSR, postwar period, Soviet election campaigns, election meetings, candidates for workers' deputies.

For Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, the basic forms of self-identification of states are described: the declaration of an official position on the assessment of historical events; the adoption of memorial laws, by which criminal liability can be established for expressing a position on facts of the past that does not correspond to the state’s position; and a policy for awards based on positive examples in the history of the country. Based on normative legal acts, officially adopted concepts and strategies, as well as a review of literature, this article identifies such models of official remembrance policy that have developed in the post-Soviet space as the defense of historical truth and historical memory, the requirement to recognize crimes committed in the past, the denial of the positive aspects of a particular stage of history, the search for state and social identity in the distant past, and its mythologization. The causes for mainstreaming history at the present stage and reflection of this process in the complex relationship of history and memory are considered. The stages of updating historical knowledge for states and peoples of the post-Soviet space are highlighted. Features of the award policy, various concepts underlying the award systems in the former republics of the Soviet Union, as well as general historical assessments of specific events and personalities are shown, even in the face of divergence of the official remembrance policy. The authors make conclusions about the adequate strategy leading to long-term results, aimed at joint experiencing the traumatic events of the past by the states and peoples, drawing lessons from them and determining ways to further development without creating an image of the enemy.

The article considers the social and political aspects of the Soviet state policy towards the Muslims of Kazakhstan in the 20- the 30s of the XX century. Documentary materials from the archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan represent the source study base of the research. Based on the analysis of archival sources, the transformation of state-Muslim relations is shown as the Soviet power strengthened: from a tolerant attitude towards Islam in the first years of the victory of the Bolsheviks to the complete secularization of the rights and freedoms of Muslims in the following decades. The author gives a characteristic of the forms and methods of the anti-religious struggle of the Soviet state, substantiates the thesis about its harmful influence on the spiritual life of Muslims that, under conditions of the most severe administrative pressure and total restriction, took the form of a semi-legal existence. The policy of the Soviet state in relation to Islam was built considering the political situation in the country. The loyalty of politics in the early years of Soviet power to a certain extent contributed to the temporary revival of the religious movement. It was due to the desire of the latter to receive political support from a huge number of Muslims of the former Russian Empire, including Kazakhstan. At the same time, loyalty did not exclude the conduct of anti-religious propaganda aimed at limiting Islam. As the Soviet power strengthened, the anti-Islamic doctrine became tougher, acquiring the character of an uncompromising struggle aimed at closing the objects of a religious cult and spiritual education, limiting, and then eliminating the Muslim clergy, etching the religious worldview from the minds of the masses, and imposing communist ideology. The declared “class struggle against the enemies of socialism,” which included the Muslim clergy, became the political underpinnings of the tightening of confessional policy. Public organizations made their contribution to whipping up the atmosphere of intolerance towards religion, to the destruction of the spiritual foundations of society: the Union of Militant Atheists of Kazakhstan, Anti-religious, the Union «Koshchi».

The relevance of the chosen topic is due to the historiographical significance of the period of the first Soviet decades as a time when social and cultural practices were largely formed, which maintain their continuity, despite significant political and social changes in society. The purpose of this research is to analyze the process of integration of physical culture and sport in the Soviet higher education system in the 1920s and 1930s. It was aimed at identifying the main features of this process, including the specifics of the government's policy towards students as a special social group, determining the influence of state ideology on the decisions of the government in physical education and sports, and the role of physical education in the education of young people. Special historical methods were used in the preparation of the research: chronological, retrospective, com-parative-historical, narrative, historical-genetic, and typological. In accordance with the general principles of the methodology of historical sources studies, a systematization and selection of sources was carried out for the reconstruction of various aspects of the topic. It was important to turn to the methods of the methodology of new social history, in particular, historical anthropology, which made it possible to analyze social practices and everyday life, to conduct a multifaceted analysis of the phenomenon of mass sports. Physical culture was an integral part of the process of acculturation of the population, actively carried out by the Bolshevik government, and was intended to serve such goals as the spread of a healthy lifestyle, the militarization of society, gender equality, and the fight against “bourgeois remnants”. Physical culture was to become a truly mass daily practice for Soviet students, which required the establishment of a comprehensive propaganda work. At the same time, its full development was hindered by the lack of centralized management and insufficient funding. The turning point was in 1929, when the Council of people's Commissars issued a decree on mandatory teaching of physical culture in all universities and higher education institutions of the country. However, its implementation met with a lot of difficulties: the lack of sports facilities, organizational confusion, and lack of necessary human and financial resources. A qualitative leap in the solution of this issue, both in organizational and economic terms, was in the second half of the 1930s.

The purpose of the article is to study the main aspects and features of the daily life of employees of the Vinnitsa Tool Plant, to reveal the established priorities, values and beliefs that exist in the "Soviet way of life" based on the analysis of Soviet periodicals. The methodology of research is basis of the research is formed by the general scientific principles of consistency, historicism and scientific objectivity. A phenomenological approach was used, which allowed us to talk about material goods in connection with the perception, experiences and behavioral strategies of a person. The study is based on the use of special-historical methods, such as problem-chronological, comparative-historical, historical-systemic, historical-psychological and descriptive. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that the authors for the first time analyzed the specifics of the everyday life of Soviet people of the indicated period on the example of a specific enterprise using the periodical press as a source. Conclusions. The Soviet press as a whole provides enough information to study the everyday life of Soviet people at the end of 1940s and early 1980s. It contains a lot of materials about undoubted positive changes in the everyday life of ordinary Soviet citizens. On the example of publications about the Vinnitsa Tool Factory in the regional and central press, one can trace such basic trends as the gradual solution of the housing problem, the provision of workers with food, the improvement of working and rest conditions, the organization and conduct of their leisure. However, the level of completeness and objectivity of the information available on the pages of Soviet periodicals does not always correspond to the real picture of life in the USSR. The press, which took an active part in the formation of public opinion and served for the authorities as one of the methods of manipulating public consciousness, used methods of suppressing and distorting truthful data, especially in those cases when they ran counter to the slogans about the dominance of socialist ideals in everyday life, welfare and bright future. The activities of the Soviet media were carried out in accordance with the program guidelines of the ruling party. From the pages of the newspapers, the upbringing of a "Soviet man" was promoted, for whom the social must necessarily dominate over the personal, who is confident in the advantages of the socialist way of life, who has a sense of pride in his native plant and his Motherland. Temporary difficulties in the social sphere or negative phenomena were explained first by the grave consequences of the war, and later by the remnants of capitalism. The guardianship of the authorities and the security of all citizens were declared, and the guarantee of work, a certain minimum of education, health care, and the necessary benefits of life gave a ghostly confidence in the future. The mass media, in essence, carried out a gross interference in a person's personal space, the imposition of the reality that was carefully formed by ideological propaganda, the construction of moral convictions inherent in the "builders of communism".

This article researches the concept of law-abiding state in the doctrine and practice of the Central Asian countries. The analysis of the formation of law-abiding state and the legal systems of give sovereign republics, taking into account the world experience in this process, the relationship of law with morality, economy, state, politics, and other aspects of public life was carried out. Law is one of the highest social, spiritual and political values, one of the most important cultural phenomena, together with justice, humanism, etc. The authors explore the different points of view of various scientists on the This article researches the concept of law-abiding state in the doctrine and practice of the Central Asian countries. The analysis of the formation of law-abiding state and the legal systems of give sovereign republics, taking into account the world experience in this process, the relationship of law with morality, economy, state, politics, and other aspects of public life was carried out. Law is one of the highest social, spiritual and political values, one of the most important cultural phenomena, together with justice, humanism, etc. The authors explore the different points of view of various scientists on the legal state and the legal systems of the Republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. It is impossible to imagine a democratic state governed by law-abiding state without an organized, hierarchically constructed democratic legal system that protects the rights and freedoms of individuals. The term “law-abiding state” includes the legal framework of the legal state. This is especially true when we mean not just the concept of law-abiding state, but the modern democratic, secular, legal and social state. All of these major systemic entities are undergoing the same stage of formation as law-abiding state and civil society in the post-Soviet space. Many new legal phenomena need to be understood in theory and mastered in practice in systemic contexts - the system of legislation, the system of law and the legal system as well.

Society becomes progressive due to the dedicated work of its members, whose activities are aimed at the development of various spheres of life. Adults involve the younger generation from an early age. The second half of the twentieth century in the Ukrainian SSR was no exception. The republic had its own peculiarities of development, which were conditioned by the party-soviet essence of existence. The latter regulated life in society, creating the appearance of a country of «prosperity». Everyone had to take part in it. As the Soviet Union regulated the struggle against the «exploitation of workers», the state resorted to formal reinforcement and demonstrative demonstration of care for the population. It created a legal basis for this, which also applied to children. There was always propaganda in the country about the need to work and the fight against «parasite elements». Radio, movies, posters, advertisements and more were involved. The school did not stand aside. It remained an important element of public policy, and at the same time a social institution with its subjects, objects and powerful potential. Not surprisingly, the disciples became an active participant in this. Appropriate measures were taken for him, through him and him. On the one hand, he was proved the importance of participation in the public life of society, on the other hand, he was used as a physical and moral potential to achieve the goal. The students planted, cared for and harvested on collective and state farms. They had their own responsibilities, worried about the future harvest. There were also regional peculiarities in this regard. In some regions, for example, there were without forestry. The desire to help and work was present in the children. Competitive aspects remained, which encouraged the improvement of the children’s team and cooperation with various economic and social structures. Children became members not only of their own (school or class) team, but also felt members of the local or industrial community.

The Chuvash literary-fiction illustrated satire and humour magazine “Kapkăn” (“Kapkan”) was chosen as the object of research. Chronological framework of the study covers 1956–1991: published intermittently since 1925in Cheboksary (originally – as a literary appendix to the newspaper “Kanash”), in 1940 the magazine ceased to be published, its issuing was resumed only in 16 years. The rich post-Soviet history of “Kapkan” (its issuing was suspended in 2017) with a changed plot and imagery of the visual series is the topic of a separate study. The broad narrative and figurative range of illustrations of “Kapkan”, their abundance and quality were determined by the fact that over decades of its fruitful work many masters of the genre who were famous outside the Republic and who were published in the central press, collaborated with the magazine, including publications in the “elder brother” of republican propaganda satirical publications – the subordinate edition of the newspaper “Pravda» – “Crocodile” magazine. The lack of studies on iconography of the Soviet period of the journal “Kapkan” determines the novelty of the research. The aim of the study is to determine the opportunities of using the visual imagery of the mentioned periodical as an ethnographic source and a source on the history of everyday life. The author considered the methods of content- and context-analysis as the most adequate ones in this case. Turning to such subjects as mismanagement, localism, nepotism, bribery, bureaucracy, artists give considerable food for thought to historians who study the problems of everyday life. The visual imagery of “Kapkan” of the postwar period makes it possible to study not only Soviet social problems through aspects of everyday life of an “ordinary Soviet man”, but classical anthropological subjects (kinship and connection by marriage, gift exchange, power, rites of transition, initiation, social experience passing, work ethic, etc.) as well. “Socialist in content”, the graphic art of the Chuvash caricaturists, was nevertheless sometimes “national in form”. At the same time, “Kapkan” did not too much work the pedals of purely national plots, did not strive for spectacular exoticism. The magazine which was published in the Chuvash language knew and understood its readers, their needs, their daily life. The emotional degree of illustrations to the “Kapkan” ranged from mild patronizing humor to hard-edged accusatory satire; it is important that the stated balance – humor and satire – in an uneasy and often ideologized environment was almost always maintained. A wide range of themes and subjects, the skill to combine graphic materials of different artists, professionals and amateur masters with their own creative manner deserve the closest attention of researchers.

Background: In the summer of 1920 the Polish-Soviet reached its apogee. While Soviet troops were approaching Warsaw, the fate of Polish statehood was to be decided. Having suffered numerous casualties, captivity and desertion of servicemen, the Polish army needed additional replenishment. Desertion, panic, self-harm of the military turned out to be especially destructive for the army, which badly undermined its fighting capacity. Under such circumstances, the Polish authorities took the decision to conduct general conscription campaign, which also included national minorities. The topic of conscription into the Polish army in the summer of 1920 in Eastern Galicia, involving also Ukrainians, has not been the subject of special investigation. Some aspects are only partially mentioned in the works by Polish researchers. Domestic scientists have hardly touched upon this problem. Given this, the following topic remains its relevance. Purpose: The work is aimed to analyze the circumstances under which the military-political authority decided to conduct additional conscription campaign into the Polish army in the summer of 1920, to determine the attitude of conscripts to military service duty, and to reveal the factors that influenced the mobilization and its results. Results: The conscription campaign in Eastern Galicia in the summer and autumn of 1920 did not live up to the country authority’s expectations, since most conscripts avoided joining the army. That was due to the unfavorable development of the situation at the front (Soviet offensive, desertion), disorganization of the administrative apparatus, because of panic, and hasty evacuation), infectious diseases, Soviet propaganda. The failure of conscription was also caused by some subjective factors such as low level of national consciousness of recruits, poor understanding of the tragic circumstances in which the country found itself, unwillingness to serve and fight owing to the work in households, survival instinct, and cowardice. The attempt and idea to conscript Ukrainians into the Polish army was unrealistic from the very beginning due to the tense social and political relations, the negative attitude of Ukrainians towards the Polish state, and the unpredictable outcome of the situation in case of increasing number of Ukrainians in the army. Therefore, realizing the challenges associated with the growth of the number of Ukrainians in the army especially at the front country's authorities refused to implement this plan. Key words: 1920, Polish Army, deserters, conscription, Eastern Galicia, national consciousness.

Introduction. The article examines the development of Soviet mass media between the 1950s and 1980s through the example of the Bashkir Republic. Goals. The paper seeks to show the mentioned period was characterized by the most consistent and qualitative development of mass media. To facilitate this, the following objectives be tackled: analysis of the gradual development of television, radio and newspapers; identification of differences in the development of mass media; clarification of common features inherent thereto. Materials and Methods. The work analyzes archival materials, and employs methods of historicism, synthesis, alternative, and multidimensional approach to study the problem; the problem-chronological principle proved as instrumental. Results. The paper shows the then difficulties in radio, television and print media, and the measures taken by local party and Soviet authorities to improve the material, technical and personnel aspects, eliminate the problems of ‘feedback from the population’; the latter’s participation in the preparation of programs and publications. The article pays attention to the policy of the Soviet state aimed at supporting the republic’s print media, expanding the network of television and radio broadcasting, in particular, allocation of budget funds for the construction of new relay lines, repair of existing ones, and improvement of the network of service organizations, etc. This resulted in that the whole territory of the republic got covered with mass media networks. It also facilitated broader propaganda and agitation, faster distribution of information about changes at national and regional levels, creation of the illusion those media sources were essentially democratic. The work describes the reform of the media, introduction of new programs, and related changes in political censorship. Scientists, public and party figures, writers, poets — the population — took an active part in the preparation of programs and publications. This increased completeness and distribution levels of the media. However, during this period people still tended to keep an eye on the policy of the Party / state, and censorship of topics was as actual, which made the participation of Bashkir ASSR’s residents in that work somewhat illusory, although it did successfully expand (and strengthen) all ties between an individual — and the republic, city, or factory he / she worked at. The mentioned years witnessed a high demand for discussions over technical innovations, new methods of work, development of social infrastructure and housing, exchange of experiences between the Bashkir ASSR and other Soviet republics. Therefore, in those years, the number of documentaries, radio programs ‘from fields’ and ‘from workshops’ — and readership circulation — significantly increased, new printing agencies were established both in urban and rural areas. Conclusions. The paper concludes that despite all travails and vicissitudes it is in the 1950s – 1980s that mass media achieved their maximum social comprehensiveness and breadth.

Visual research has been gaining popularity in various social sciences in recent decades. Moreover, developments in sociology, political science and law related to the study of cultural aspects of society are interdisciplinary in nature. Jurisprudence is a fairly conservative scientific field in Russia, and the theories of the Soviet period continue to occupy dominant positions in legal science. Nevertheless, there are quite interesting approaches borrowed from other sciences of the socio-humanitarian profile. In this regard, the study of visual sources in jurisprudence seems to the author to be a promising direction, since, one way or another, legal concepts are represented in the visual. It is worth remembering any works of fine art (propaganda posters) or cinema (cinema), where you can see the reflection of certain political and legal ideas. The purpose of the article is to show the role and importance of visual sources of information in general, as well as in relation to the history of political and steam exercises. Because the standard format of considering political and legal ideas only within the framework of written sources does not allow for a comprehensive study of the influence of doctrines on legal consciousness. Visual as well as auditory sources significantly expand the picture of the legal world. Also, the author for the first time gave a classification of visual and legal sources, which, in turn, are divided into static and dynamic. The work clearly shows that law can also be studied in a visual context, which is to some extent an anthropological reading of the legal matter.

In this article, the author analyzes the ideological struggle for the Ukrainian national identity happened in a meaningful time of Khrushchev Thaw when first dissidents appeared. Additionally, we have applied the theme of ideological propaganda and agitation considered through language approach to a larger scientific extent. First, we characterize separately the creating of an ethnic identity endorsed by the SRSR, and national identity of the URSR as an integral part of a specific social identity, linguistic identification with representatives of a certain nation, its culture and traditions, which include the entire complex of emotions caused by the sense of belonging. By involving the idea of identity as a relational, socio-cultural phenomenon, we considered the concept of Bucholt and Hall, J. Mead, K. Levy-Strauss. Next, we identify the works of Anthony Smith, Herbert Blumer, Ernest Gellner, Eric Gobsbaum. Trying to conduct the concept analysis of the formation of the Ukrainian national identity through the semantic and semiotic aspects of the language identity according to the Dissidents movement we used 3 key topic notions: - Identity as a relational, socio-cultural phenomenon; - Socio-historical contextualization of showing the national identity as an environmental product of the nation; - Ideology of the Standard Language. Finally, the author comes to an outcome that the Soviet ideology allowing the formation of the so-called ethnographic identity of Ukrainians, made considerable efforts to prevent the creation of a nationwide identity that Ukrainian Dissidents were fighting for, herewith, artificially imposing the idea of the disunity of Eastern and Western Ukraine.

The article is devoted to preliminary analysis of the waqf documents from ‘Collection of waqf deeds’ stored in the Central State Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan (fond I-323). Specifically, it examines the history of waqf in the Khanate of Khiva. The fond contains waqf deeds; their historic-geographical footprint covers wide areas of Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva, Kokand, Tashkent, and Balkh. The article provides information on the archival fond, its creation in the Soviet period, its internal structure and documents, scholars involved in the preparation of the catalogue. The author classifies the documents, studies external and internal features of the waqf deeds, carries out their historical source studies analysis. Waqfnama has legal force, it is considered a document reflecting procedure of donating property of a waqif (a person who establishes a waqf) and further spending of the income on that property it by a religious or educational institution for its needs or social services. From this point of view, waqf deeds are a valuable source for studying the history of religious foundations and educational institutions in the Khanate of Khiva. Naturally, these institutions had different activities and functions. Therefore, waqf documents registered theoretical and legal aspects of waqf, management of the waqf economy, organization of the activity of each institution. Results of a preliminary analysis suggest that mostly the Khiva documents in the first series of the I-323 fond are the following: 71 waqf deeds held by mosques, 22 – by madrasas, 12 – by cemeteries, and, finally, 5 – by qarikhanas (lodges for reciters of the Quran). Drawing attention to the historical significance of this type of documents, the article briefly described the activities of these institutions on the example of their waqf deeds. ‘Collection of waqf deeds’ is of particular importance for studying the waqf in Central Asia, and also for the auxiliary branches of history.

The author examines the current state of literature, which has been marginalized by the boom of modern media and the free market. Literature is called to restore a worthy place in the system of cultural communication of society. It is contradicted by the experience of postmodernism, which has led to disorientation in the system of art values. Postmodernism was an important formation of the transition period. Three aspects of the postmodern worldview ― dehumanization of art, lack of truths' hierarchy and their plurality, and the loss of the author’s authority ― have led to a long-lasting crisis in the post-Soviet literatures, but in the wider context, it was a crisis of relations with society and public opinion. The continuation of this crisis is stimulated by the use of technologies aimed at producing the post-truth. In the contemporary world, dominated by mass media and popular culture, fiction is not fully responsible for the crisis of society. The author of the paper considers examples that confirm the relevance of literature to ideological conflicts and propaganda rhetoric. The novelties of Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian literatures provide good material for the study of the post-truth in its Eastern European modifications. Nowadays fiction is seeking its place once again; its potential means of influencing the human consciousness in the post-truth world are being renewed. This process should be seen dialectically, with its probable positive and negative consequences. The post-truth world gives literature a chance to leave the shadows of media and restore its authority in the cultural sphere. At the same time, the confluence of literary fiction with post-truth poses a considerable danger, since it may be applied in modern manipulative technologies. The establishment of social and psychological communication, which became one of the priority tasks of modern literature, should not be implemented at the cost of human degradation.

The processes that took place in the public life of our country at those stages of its historical development, when the issue of preserving the Ukrainian statehood, were of great interest in the context of the implementation of the “decentralization” reform and the growing role of local self-government in modern Ukraine. In this context, the issues of participation of the Ukrainian intellectuals in the work of local self-government bodies (“Ukrainian subsidiary administrations”) during the difficult period of the German-fascist occupation of the territory of Ukraine in 1941-1944 are of current relevance. In the first weeks of the war with the Soviet Union, the fascist leadership decisively eliminated all attempts by Ukrainian nationalists to recreate the Ukrainian state in any form. The occupied territories were artificially divided into several administrative territorial units. On August 20, 1941, the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine was formed, which included ten occupied regions of Ukraine, including Dnipropetrovsk.On the initiative of P.T. Sokolovsky, The “Committee of Managing Propagandists” was established in the city and solemnly celebrated the second anniversary of “liberation” of Dnepropetrovsk “from the Bolsheviks” on August 25, 1943. The views of P.T. Sokolovsky were shared by many of his subordinates. Propaganda of the ideas of the new totalitarian ideology certainly met the requirements of the occupying power. Analyzing the article, we can conclude that the activities of the local intellectuals in the “Ukrainian Supplementary Authority” of Dnepropetrovsk were fully subordinated to the economic needs of the occupiers. However, the city government resolved the issues of social security of the population, preservation of the infrastructure and economic objects of the city by serving the occupying power. That is why the study of the positive aspects of the participation of the intellectuals in the work of the city government of Dnepropetrovsk in the complex historical period of 1941–1943 is a prospect for further investigation of this problem.

The article analyses the main tendencies and peculiarities of functioning of certain aspects of Ukrainian-Polish relations during the Second World War in Russian historiography and journalism. The need to rethink the historiography of the Volyn tragedy in Russia is long overdue, so the role and importance of the identification function of historiography itself and the observance of the principle of objectivity in scientific and historical works have grown. Historiography provides a choice of research strategies, cognitive models, conceptual positions, and finally theoretical foundations for analyzing the past. In view of this, the purpose of the article was to synthesize and analyze the work of Russian scientists, to identify the main directions and to establish links between scientific and social discourses. The methodological basis of exploration was the principles of historicism, systematicity, objectivity. The methods of historiographic analysis and synthesis, genetic, problem-chronological, comparative, retrospective, predetermined by the research topic are used in the work. These methodological foundations allowed us to trace the evolution of historiographical discourse in Russia, its structural and institutional forms during the 1990s - the first decades of the 21st century. n historiography, given their mobility, are also subject to the method of description, that is, the disclosure of typical properties, features, differences, quantitative and functional characteristics. It is argued that the overwhelming majority of Russian authors portray Volyn events within the established post-Soviet narrative with correspondingly negative evaluations of the Ukrainian underground against the Polish population, describing them as genocide or ethnic cleansing. At the same time, the presence of a liberal trend in Russian historiography, which tries to avoid radical judgments, is noted. Negative Ratings and Plots: Volyn-related events regularly appear in the media, perpetuating the negative stereotype of a "Bandera" (and sometimes just a Ukrainian) in Russian society. The results obtained in the course of the study are actualized in view of the active use of the theme of Volyn events in the conditions of the Ukrainian-Russian war. Keywords Volyn tragedy, Russia, historiography, journalism, propaganda, UPA.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how myths, narratives and biases referring to the recent history are born and developed in nowadays Latvia, supported by the analysis of the case study of the legacy of KGB and its actualization in the public discussion landscape focusing on the relationship of KGB and artists and cultural workers. One of the main criteria for narrowing the research subject to regarding only the relationship between representatives of the fields of arts and culture and KGB is that those particular relationship cases have caused the most heated discussions in mass media and general public, mostly due to the undeniable public ‘visibility’ of the aforementioned professionals as well as due to personal in-depth connection of society members with art products, artists and cultural workers via artistic preferences, engagement with cultural processes, individual contribution to profes- sional and amateur arts, emotional links, memories etc. Another important aspect to be considered is the strong connectedness of arts and culture with the state apparatus, as throughout history arts and cultural production has served as a propaganda tool, putting forward regime ideology and granting a certain kind of ‘power legitimization’ as supported by entertainment industry. In order to get a deeper insight into the formation of the myths, narratives and biases referring to the relationship between artists and cultural workers in nowadays Latvia, the authors of the study have combined empiric data analysis based on the research project by the Government Commission for KGB Research at the University of Latvia, the purpose of which was to prepare KGB card files for public access on the website of the National Archives of Latvia, and qualitative media and public discussion narrative analysis, focusing on how certain aspects referring to Soviet legacy in general and specifically to cooperation between artists and cultural sector workers and KGB have been framed and portrayed in actual social memory representations.

Purpose. The article considers the process of forming the image of the military human during the military expansion of the USSR in the late 1930's on the basis of materials of individual publications of Soviet military periodicals of that time. The military press of this period is characterized by a variety of publications: from ordinary army newspapers to political publications for the command and military-political staff of the Red Arme and the USSR Navy. All publications had a similar structure and content, so the source base is the materials published in the newspaper “Krasnaya Zvezda” and the periodical “Propagandist and agitator of the Red Army”, which contain significant and interesting material on all aspects of social and political image of the Soviet soldier in this period Results and scientific novelty of the study. It was found that the process of forming the image of the military, well reflected in the Soviet military-political periodicals at the beginning of the Soviet military expansion had the following features. the social image was formed on the basis of the needs of the then foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet state and reflected all the claims of the Soviet system to world domination. The task of the military press was to depict the successes in creating the image of a special, different from the Western model of the soldier. The tendency to glorify a soldier of the revolutionary army continues, attention is focused on the connection of generations, comparisons are made with the heroes of the past, even with epic heroes.This points to attempts to prove the legitimacy of claims to the entire military historical heritage, to all those territories that were once conquered by the Russian army (contrary to the very Bolshevik position on the unjust and aggressive nature of the wars once waged by the Russian tsarist army). The image of an impeccable soldier with a clear understanding of his historical mission as a liberator, a victor, because the wars in which the USSR entered in 1939 were a priori defined as legitimate, just from the point of view of the Bolshevik dogma of war just and unjust. The image of the military human in the Soviet consciousness of both the average citizen and the soldier himself, which, in turn, were formed under the significant influence of propaganda, which was important for both the Red Army and society. The general social image of the invincible army, the impeccable fighter of the Red Army, gradually intensified, in a way uniting the images of the leaders of the party and the country with the image of an ordinary soldier, which became part of the mythologizing Soviet reality. All the above provisions make it possible to note that the military-political press of the end 1930’s, in the context of military conflicts, although quite standardized, at that time successfully fulfilled its role in building a stable social image of the Soviet military. Already at this time there is a certain evolution of the image military human. The public image of a soldier of the revolutionary Red Army is transformed into the image of a liberating soldier, a defender of peace throughout the world. This clearly shows the traditional for the empire awareness of its messianic role in the world, on the basis of which was built a new form, but essentially old social image of the military human. Key words: military press of the USSR, social image of the military human, Red Army. Мета роботи. У статті розглядається процес формування образу військового у період розгортання військової експансії СРСР в кінці 1930-х рр. за матеріалами окремих видань радянської військової періодики цього часу.Військовий друк означеного періоду вирізняється багатоманітністю видань різного характеру: від звичайних армійських газет до політичних видань для командного та військово-політичного складу РСЧА і ВМФ СРСР. Усі видання мали схожу структуру та наповненість, тож джерельною базою виступають матеріали, розміщені в газеті «Красная Звезда» та періодич-ному виданні «Пропагандист и агитатор РККА», що містять значний і цікавий матеріал стосовно всіх аспектів формування соціального і політичного образу радянського солдата у означений період.Результати та наукова новизна дослідження. З’ясовано, що процес формування образу військового, добре відображений в радянській військово-політичній періодиці на початку військової експансії СРСР мав наступні риси.Цей суспільний образ формувався, виходячи з потреб тогочасної зовнішньої та внутрішньої політики радянської держави і відображав усі претензії радянської системи на світове панування. Завданням військової преси було змалювання успіхів у створенні образу особливого, відмінного від західної моделі солдата. Продовжується тенденція героїзації бійця революційної армії, акцентується увага на зв’язку поколінь, здійснюється порівняння з героями минулого, навіть з билинними богатирями. Це вказує на спроби доведення законності претензій на всю військову історичну спадщину, на всі ті території, які були колись завойовані російською армією (всупереч самої більшовицької позиції про несправедливий і загарбливий характер війн, що вела колись російська царська армія).Вибудовувався образ бездоганного бійця з чітким усвідомленням своєї історичної місії визволителя, переможця, оскільки війни, в яку вступав СРСР в 1939 року апріорі визначалися законними, справедливими з точки зору більшовицького догмату про війни справедливі і несправедливі.Слід враховувати тогочасні суспільні вимоги до образу військового в радянській свідомості як пересічного громадянина, так і самого військовика, які, в свою чергу, формувалися під значним впливом пропаганди, що мало важливе значення як для самої Червоної армії, так і для суспільства. Загальний суспільний образ непереможної армії, бездоганного бійця Червоної армії поступово посилювався, певним чином об’єднував в єдине ціле образи вождів партії та країни з образом звичайного солдата, що стало частиною міфологізації радянської реальності. Усі вищезазначені положення дають можливість зауважити, що військово-політичний друк кінця 1930-х рр., в умовах роз-гортання військових конфліктів, хоч і доволі стандартизований, на той час успішно виконував свою роль у процесі побудови стійкого суспільного образу радянського військового. Уже в цей час спостерігається певна еволюція образу військового. Суспільний образ бійця революційної Червоної армії трансформується в образ воїна-визволителя, захисника миру в усьому світі. У цьому чітко спостерігається традиційне для імперії усвідомлення своєї месіанської ролі в світі, на основі якого і вибудовувалася новий за формою, але старий за сутністю суспільний образ військового.Ключові слова: військовий друк СРСР, соціальний образ військового, Червона армія.

The article concerns the fate of Felicjan Karp’s family, one of the richest landowners of Samogitia (Lithuania) in the first two decades of the 20th century. After his father, he inherited approximately 40,163 hectares. The history of this family perfectly illustrates the changes that this social class has undergone in the past century. The end of their existence was the end of the landowner’s existence. The twilight of the Samogitian Karps took place quite quickly, for only a quarter of a century from July 28, 1914, the date of the outbreak of World War I to the Soviet invasion of the Republic of Lithuania on June 15, 1940. Over the course of these years - on a large scale two-fold - military operations, changes in the political and economic system, including agricultural reform initiated in the reborn Lithuanian state in 1922 and deportations to Siberia in 1940 brutally closed the last stable chapter in the life of Rekijów’s owners, definitively exterminating them after more than 348 years from the land of their ancestors. Relations between the Karp family and the Rekijów estate should be dated at least from September 21, 1592. In addition to the description of the family, it is also necessary to emphasize their significant economic and political importance in the inhabited region. These last two aspects gained momentum especially from the first years of the 19th century and were reflected until 1922. At that time, representatives of the Karp family jointly owned approximately 70,050 ha and provided the country with two provincial marshals (Vilnius, Kaunas) and two county marshals (Upita, Ponevezys). The author also presents their fate during World War II in the Siberian Gulag, during the amnesty under the Sikorski–Majski Agreement of July 30, 1941, joining the formed Polish Army in the USSR (August 14, 1941), the soldier’s journey through Kermine in Uzbekistan, Krasnovodsk, Caspian Sea, Khanaqin in Iraq, Palestine to the military camp near Tel-Aviv and then Egypt and the entire Italian campaign, that is the battles of Monte Cassino, Loreto and Ancona. After the war, leaving Italy to England (1946), followed by a short stay in Argentina and finally settling in Perth, Australia.

The exhibition entitled The Family of Man, which was designed by Edward Steichen and presented for the fi rst time in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, belongs to the most famous and most controversial photographic expositions of the 20th century. Usually perceived in the light of the anachronistic, West-centric vision of humanism, i.e. as an embodiment of Modernist views on photography, it constitutes a good example of the museum’s infl uence as a Modernist “social instrument”. However, contemporary theories in exhibition studies offer a more complex interpretation. The present work provides insight into this process by referring to the views of Mieke Bal (on the “cinematic effect” of photographic exhibitions, the narrative and relational aspect of expositions), Fred Turner (on the space of an avant-garde exhibition as the realisation of the political and social idea of a “democratic personality”) and Ariella Azoulay (on exhibition space as a “visual declaration of human rights” and the fi eld for a “photographic social contract”). The primary aim of the present article is to set The Family of Man within the framework of Polish exhibition practices. The complex origins of the American project can be traced back to avant-garde experiments with exhibition space conducted in the Bauhaus movement and in Soviet Constructivism (the psychology of perception, “photo-murals”); the analysis focuses on the political and propagandistic aspects. An analysis of the above issues provides the starting point for considering the signifi cance and probable reception of the exhibition’s spatial arrangement in the milieu of Polish architects and designers as well as its Polish variant as prepared by Stanisław Zamecznik and Wojciech Fangor. It was therefore useful to refer to Oskar Hansen and his theory of Open Form, as he cooperated with Zamecznik and Fangor at the time. Models of avant-garde and Modernist “utopian thinking” are juxtaposed, thus making it possible to perceive the process of reception in the light of its effectiveness. The article also discusses The Family of Man as a model for projects with propaganda undertones, i.e. the so-called “problem-oriented exhibitions”. It mentions attempts at adapting Steichen’s design of exhibition space to the needs of the offi cial narrative in the People’s Republic of Poland. Finally, it uncovers the ambivalent nature of the infl uence of The Family of Man and the dual status of the exhibition as both a propagandistic project and as an anti-systemic space supporting the ideal of a creative, free individual.

The author has carried out a comparative analysis of Ukrainian-Russian relationship between the days of the Ukrainian Central Rada and the modern period. The character and ideological basis of stable tendencies in Russia’s policy towards Ukraine have been demonstrated. The similarity in the approaches of the Russian central government to the so-called “solution of the Ukrainian issue” has been determined; the essence of Russian chauvinism in understanding the right of nations to self-determination has been demonstrated. The causes and consequences of the war between Soviet Russia and the Ukrainian People’s Republic have been analyzed. The author has determined the main significant, fateful mistakes of the leaders of the Central Rada within relations with the People’s Commissar of Russia, which led to the loss of authority and support of the Ukrainian people for national power and, as a consequence, the collapse of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. The nature and essence of the ideology of the so-called “Russian world” have been revealed. It has been concluded that the history of Ukrainian statehood in 1917-1918 is instructive in many aspects, since it shows that one of the main reasons for the defeat of the Ukrainian Central Rada, which ultimately failed to defend the Ukrainian People’s Republic, was the lack of necessary consolidation of national political forces in solving urgent state affairs (creation and development of own army, timely solution of social, economic problems, efficiency of work of legislative and executive agencies, etc.). It has been noted that the challenges currently facing the Ukrainian state – Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the invasion of its troops in the East, the information war, the propaganda of the so-called “Russian world”, etc. – are not new. In many ways, they repeat what happened in 1917-1918. In particular, the proclamation of puppet pseudo-republics “DNR” and “LNR” in the East of Ukraine, through which Russian troops de facto launched the war against Ukraine. That is why modern Ukrainian politicians need to learn the lessons from the past. Nowadays, when Ukraine is defending its independence from Russia, Ukrainian statesmen and politicians must abandon their narrow party and self-interests and work together to protect national achievements from the encroachments of the “Russian world”, the most important of which is the state of Ukraine.

The article considers the prospects of tourism development in five countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. The author analyzes cultural, social and economic aspects of the tourism industry in the region. The main directions of activity of international organi-zations in the framework of tourism promotion programs are given. Central Asia has a huge potential for the tourism development. The study of the current state of tourism in Central Asia is becoming increasingly important. Tourism resources have every chance to become part of the national wealth of the countries of this region. In the group of factors determining socio-economic development of the countries in the region are natural resources, the level of production and investment, social infrastructure, management quality, international competitiveness, etc. The need for the regional development management system is conditioned by regionalization processes inherent to the current economic situation, oriented to ensuring positive national economic dynamics and maximum using the region’s potential. The studying problem of regional development makes it possible to justify, as one of the directions of its solution, the use of cluster technologies oriented to those branches of the economy that can become a vector of regional development. According to experts, the tourism industry is one of the most profitable sectors of the economy of the region. This industry covers numerous sectors of the economy and various links between them. The main tourist routes in the present time, covering many objects of the Great Silk Road, do not offer a more detailed study of the local historical, architectural and archaeological heritage. The lack of infrastructure facilities is the reason for this. This fact forces us to search solutions, which will provide a comfortable environment for both tourists and researchers. At present, the Central Asian countries occupy a very modest place in the world market of tourist services. According to many experts, the demand for sanatorium, tourist and excursion services has decreased due to the transition period, and the existing network of tourist institutions, boarding houses, rest homes needs reconstruction. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, tourism in the Central Asian republics began to develop independently, without common approaches and concepts. In many respects this is determined by the fact that the new states have chosen their own models of socio-economic development, different from each other. The different level of political freedoms, economic development features determine the current state of the tourism industry in various countries of Central Asia. The perspective of tourism development in this region is quite difficult, but an interesting task, necessary for familiarizing humanity with the most interesting culture of peoples inhabiting Central Asia and developing the economies of countries.

An important component of the state-building process in Ukraine is the government’s activities to ensure national security, which is an attribute of independence. The ruling political forces in Ukraine have created the necessary legal framework for national security (parliamentary resolutions, laws, decrees of the head of state). The process of ensuring the national security of Ukraine should be divided into stages: 1991−2014 (imitation) and after 2014 (essential). The peculiarities of the first stage were the wide involvement of Soviet approaches in the formation of the institutional basis for ensuring national security, the imitation of the defense activity of legitimate armed formations, and the development of the military organization of the state. It was considered that the proper level of military security of Ukraine is evidence of national security in general. At the beginning of 2014, the system of ensuring Ukraine's national security on the basis of imitation collapsed, which failed to counteract Russia's aggressive plans. Seeking to hinder the will of the Ukrainian people for a European future, Russia occupied part of Ukraine’s territory − the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, and unleashed military aggression in eastern Ukraine. The beginning of the essential stage of ensuring the national security of Ukraine is connected with the initiative involvement of civil society in the implementation of security and defense tasks. Evidence of this were: the rapid organization of the emergence of volunteer battalions and their practical application in eastern Ukraine; active formation of local self-defense forces; powerful volunteer movement; deployment of information resistance structures to the enemy’s propaganda influences; implementation of the values of patriotism in the spiritual and cultural life of the population, etc. The violent reaction of civil society to the threats and dangers that threaten the very existence of an independent and sovereign Ukraine has become a social reality. In Ukraine, there has been a fundamental shift in emphasis in the understanding of national security. The main subject of its ensuring is the security and defense sector, which combines state authorities, state armed formations and civil society structures interested in solving security and defense tasks. In Ukraine, which seeks to become democratic, security activities have been de-ethicized, which is not the case in authoritarian countries. If earlier national security was interpreted as a state of protection of national interests, now (at the request of civil society) − as a state of protection of national interests and values. The theory and practice of creating national security of Ukraine are developing dynamically. The subject of scientific research and public discussions are methodological, institutional, public administration, social compensation aspects of national security and defense. It is a matter of practical implementation of their results with the leading participation of constitutional state structures. Key words: national security, state-building, legal framework on national security, military organization of the state, security and defense sector, civil society, security, danger.

This text is about one of the longest processes of political communication, which, decades on, influences politicians of various generations of the Central, Eastern and Western Europe, contents of media and self-awareness of the audience. The process isn’t over yet, this is obvious not only from the document adopted by the EP but also from an international political rhetoric. Analysis of consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on 1939 in media (D’39Pact) and related national and international decisions is the axis of information conflict between the East and the West concerning thousands of fates. Those thousands of people had and still have different historical narratives – some people justified the Pact and implemented it, others were fighting for the elimination of its consequences, yet others fell victims to it, with a death toll estimated in the millions. But not everybody’s narratives are based on true arguments.Let’s look at the way the system of propaganda collapsed and the public opinion was transformed in countries of Central and Eastern Europe in 1988-1989. Moving from a lie to (hopefully) the historical truth. Review of consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the main axis of such transformation (protection of environmental and cultural valuables, choice of one’s viewpoint, legislative requirements and other rights were contextual aspects of this axis). During this period in the previously mentioned region the control of public space was on the decline.This view will be based on a single thematic discourse: the provision of consequences of the 1939 Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and criticism in communist model media of Lithuania and neighbouring countries. It may be called D’39Pact.D‘39Pact in general has several narratives (it may also be seen from the EP Resolution), but taking into consideration the interpretation of Jurgen Habermas’s Communicative Action, the analysis of transformation of 1988-1989 two of them would suffice, one of which is that of the authorities of the USSR and the other one – that of its opponents. Let’s call opponents USSR dissidents, protestors, underground press (samizdat) and press of public movements which was published legally.Narrative of the USSR authorities: the treaty was the inevitable and no annexes (secret protocols) exist.Narrative of the opponents: based on secret protocols of the treaty, the USSR and Nazi Germany divided the countries and destroyed their political, military, cultural elite and finally – their population of various social layers.Medias, as the main participant of the public space, most clearly disclose the collision of such narratives and transformation in D‘39Pact. The purpose of the article is to discuss the circumstances of transformation of MMPT from the historical perspective and of the public space and come across the factors, which influenced the strongest role of MMPT interpretative accomplishments. Considering the way out of the “labyrinth” regarding the D’39 Pact, we see some similarities with the situation that now exists in Russia.

In this forum onNeighborsby Jan T. Gross (Princeton, 2001), four scholars respond to the book and to the issues of evidence, causality, and interpretation that it raises. Janine P. Holc summarizes the contents and the book's approach and explores the roles of individual choice, on the one hand, and ethnic identity categories, on the other, in Gross's presentation of the causes of the massacre of the Jewish residents of Jedwabne by their non-Jewish neighbors. She argues for an approach to readingNeighborsthat links the emotive mode in which some of the narrative is expressed to a productive engagement with traumatic or violent historical episodes. This type of history resists finality and closure and creates an avenue for active engagement by members of ethnic (or other) communities with violent and traumatic pasts. Wojciech Roszkowski discusses three aspects of the debate onNeighborsin Poland: the credibility of the book, the facts of 10 July 1941 and their moral meaning, and the representativeness of the Jedwabne case and the question of “innocence” or “guilt” of nations. While arguing that the credibility ofNeighborsis low and that Gross's thesis that “one half of the Jedwabne inhabitants killed the other half” has not been proven, he writes that it is impossible to deny Polish participation in the massacre. Yet, as with other documented cases of Polish wartime evildoing, it is unfair to blow this incident out of proportion and produce unwarranted generalizations. Past and present realities are always more complicated than simple stereotypes that “Poles” or “Jews” are to blame or that they have always been innocent. William W. Hagen argues that Gross vacillates between a robust positivism promising that “a reconstruction” of “what actually took place” is possible, such that guilt and motive may confidently be assigned, and an interpretive pessimism suggesting that “we will never 'understand' why it happened.” In his assignment of causality, Gross offers a largely unconnected, in part inferential or speculative, array of determinants and motives. Although some ofthecauses Gross adduces are certainly persuasive, his analysis does not address the Jedwabne perpetrators' and witnesses' perception of the cultural meaning of the inhuman violence their Jewish neighbors were suffering. Hagen offers some suggestive historical evidence on the Poles' subjective response to the Jewish genocide and to their own wartime fate, arguing that the Jedwabne Poles' participation in the mass murder of the Jews must be conceived as a response, mediated by the penetration of ideological anti-Semitism into the countryside, to profound anxiety over the individual and social death menacing Polish identity under Soviet and Nazi occupation. Norman M. Naimark argues that the appearance of Gross'sNeighborshas created an entirely new dimension to the historiography of World War II in Poland. The book demonstrated, as has no other work, the extent to which the Poles were directly involved in the genocide of the Jews. The clarity and force of Gross's presentation provides Polish historiography with an unprecedented opportunity “to come to terms with the past.” The essay also suggests that the Jedwabne massacre needs to be looked at in the context of overall German policy “in the east” and in comparison to similar horrors taking place roughly at the same time in Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia. The Nazis intentionally (and surreptitiously) sought to incite pogroms in the region, filming and photographing the horrific events for audiences back home. Their own propaganda about the “Jewish-Bolshevik” menace both prompted and was ostensibly confirmed by the pogroms. In his response, Jan T. Gross replies to Roszkowski's criticism concerning historical credibility.

In this forum on Neighbors by Jan T. Gross (Princeton, 2001), four scholars respond to the book and to the issues of evidence, causality, and interpretation that it raises. Janine P. Holc summarizes the contents and the book's approach and explores the roles of individual choice, on the one hand, and ethnic identity categories, on the other, in Gross's presentation of the causes of the massacre of the Jewish residents of Jedwabne by their non-Jewish neighbors. She argues for an approach to reading Neighbors that links the emotive mode in which some of the narrative is expressed to a productive engagement with traumatic or violent historical episodes. This type of history resists finality and closure and creates an avenue for active engagement by members of ethnic (or other) communities with violent and traumatic pasts. Wojciech Roszkowski discusses three aspects of the debate on Neighbors in Poland: the credibility of the book, the facts of 10 July 1941 and their moral meaning, and the representativeness of the Jedwabne case and the question of “innocence” or “guilt” of nations. While arguing that the credibility of Neighbors is low and that Gross's thesis that “one half of the Jedwabne inhabitants killed the other half” has not been proven, he writes that it is impossible to deny Polish participation in the massacre. Yet, as with other documented cases of Polish wartime evildoing, it is unfair to blow this incident out of proportion and produce unwarranted generalizations. Past and present realities are always more complicated than simple stereotypes that “Poles” or “Jews” are to blame or that they have always been innocent. William W. Hagen argues that Gross vacillates between a robust positivism promising that “a reconstruction” of “what actually took place” is possible, such that guilt and motive may confidently be assigned, and an interpretive pessimism suggesting that “we will never 'understand' why it happened.” In his assignment of causality, Gross offers a largely unconnected, in part inferential or speculative, array of determinants and motives. Although some of the causes Gross adduces are certainly persuasive, his analysis does not address the Jedwabne perpetrators' and witnesses' perception of the cultural meaning of the inhuman violence their Jewish neighbors were suffering. Hagen offers some suggestive historical evidence on the Poles' subjective response to the Jewish genocide and to their own wartime fate, arguing that the Jedwabne Poles' participation in the mass murder of the Jews must be conceived as a response, mediated by the penetration of ideological anti-Semitism into the countryside, to profound anxiety over the individual and social death menacing Polish identity under Soviet and Nazi occupation. Norman M. Naimark argues that the appearance of Gross's Neighbors has created an entirely new dimension to the historiography of World War II in Poland. The book demonstrated, as has no other work, the extent to which the Poles were directly involved in the genocide of the Jews. The clarity and force of Gross's presentation provides Polish historiography with an unprecedented opportunity “to come to terms with the past.” The essay also suggests that the Jedwabne massacre needs to be looked at in the context of overall German policy “in the east” and in comparison to similar horrors taking place roughly at the same time in Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia. The Nazis intentionally (and surreptitiously) sought to incite pogroms in the region, filming and photographing the horrific events for audiences back home. Their own propaganda about the “Jewish-Bolshevik” menace both prompted and was ostensibly confirmed by the pogroms. In his response, Jan T. Gross replies to Roszkowski's criticism concerning historical credibility.

In this forum onNeighborsby Jan T. Gross (Princeton, 2001), four scholars respond to the book and to the issues of evidence, causality, and interpretation that it raises. Janine P. Holc summarizes the contents and the book's approach and explores the roles of individual choice, on the one hand, and ethnic identity categories, on the other, in Gross's presentation of the causes of the massacre of the Jewish residents of Jedwabne by their non-Jewish neighbors. She argues for an approach to readingNeighborsthat links the emotive mode in which some of the narrative is expressed to a productive engagement with traumatic or violent historical episodes. This type of history resists finality and closure and creates an avenue for active engagement by members of ethnic (or other) communities with violent and traumatic pasts. Wojciech Roszkowski discusses three aspects of the debate onNeighborsin Poland: the credibility of the book, the facts of 10 July 1941 and their moral meaning, and the representativeness of the Jedwabne case and the question of “innocence” or “guilt” of nations. While arguing that the credibility ofNeighborsis low and that Gross's thesis that “one half of the Jedwabne inhabitants killed the other half” has not been proven, he writes that it is impossible to deny Polish participation in the massacre. Yet, as with other documented cases of Polish wartime evildoing, it is unfair to blow this incident out of proportion and produce unwarranted generalizations. Past and present realities are always more complicated than simple stereotypes that “Poles” or “Jews” are to blame or that they have always been innocent. William W. Hagen argues that Gross vacillates between a robust positivism promising that “a reconstruction” of “what actually took place” is possible, such that guilt and motive may confidently be assigned, and an interpretive pessimism suggesting that “we will never 'understand' why it happened.” In his assignment of causality, Gross offers a largely unconnected, in part inferential or speculative, array of determinants and motives. Although some ofthecauses Gross adduces are certainly persuasive, his analysis does not address the Jedwabne perpetrators' and witnesses' perception of the cultural meaning of the inhuman violence their Jewish neighbors were suffering. Hagen offers some suggestive historical evidence on the Poles' subjective response to the Jewish genocide and to their own wartime fate, arguing that the Jedwabne Poles' participation in the mass murder of the Jews must be conceived as a response, mediated by the penetration of ideological anti-Semitism into the countryside, to profound anxiety over the individual and social death menacing Polish identity under Soviet and Nazi occupation. Norman M. Naimark argues that the appearance of Gross'sNeighborshas created an entirely new dimension to the historiography of World War II in Poland. The book demonstrated, as has no other work, the extent to which the Poles were directly involved in the genocide of the Jews. The clarity and force of Gross's presentation provides Polish historiography with an unprecedented opportunity “to come to terms with the past.” The essay also suggests that the Jedwabne massacre needs to be looked at in the context of overall German policy “in the east” and in comparison to similar horrors taking place roughly at the same time in Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia. The Nazis intentionally (and surreptitiously) sought to incite pogroms in the region, filming and photographing the horrific events for audiences back home. Their own propaganda about the “Jewish-Bolshevik” menace both prompted and was ostensibly confirmed by the pogroms. In his response, Jan T. Gross replies to Roszkowski's criticism concerning historical credibility.

In this forum onNeighborsby Jan T. Gross (Princeton, 2001), four scholars respond to the book and to the issues of evidence, causality, and interpretation that it raises. Janine P. Holc summarizes the contents and the book's approach and explores the roles of individual choice, on the one hand, and ethnic identity categories, on the other, in Gross's presentation of the causes of the massacre of the Jewish residents of Jedwabne by their non-Jewish neighbors. She argues for an approach to readingNeighborsthat links the emotive mode in which some of the narrative is expressed to a productive engagement with traumatic or violent historical episodes. This type of history resists finality and closure and creates an avenue for active engagement by members of ethnic (or other) communities with violent and traumatic pasts. Wojciech Roszkowski discusses three aspects of the debate onNeighborsin Poland: the credibility of the book, the facts of 10 July 1941 and their moral meaning, and the representativeness of the Jedwabne case and the question of “innocence” or “guilt” of nations. While arguing that the credibility ofNeighborsis low and that Gross's thesis that “one half of the Jedwabne inhabitants killed the other half” has not been proven, he writes that it is impossible to deny Polish participation in the massacre. Yet, as with other documented cases of Polish wartime evildoing, it is unfair to blow this incident out of proportion and produce unwarranted generalizations. Past and present realities are always more complicated than simple stereotypes that “Poles” or “Jews” are to blame or that they have always been innocent. William W. Hagen argues that Gross vacillates between a robust positivism promising that “a reconstruction” of “what actually took place” is possible, such that guilt and motive may confidently be assigned, and an interpretive pessimism suggesting that “we will never 'understand' why it happened.” In his assignment of causality, Gross offers a largely unconnected, in part inferential or speculative, array of determinants and motives. Although some ofthecauses Gross adduces are certainly persuasive, his analysis does not address the Jedwabne perpetrators' and witnesses' perception of the cultural meaning of the inhuman violence their Jewish neighbors were suffering. Hagen offers some suggestive historical evidence on the Poles' subjective response to the Jewish genocide and to their own wartime fate, arguing that the Jedwabne Poles' participation in the mass murder of the Jews must be conceived as a response, mediated by the penetration of ideological anti-Semitism into the countryside, to profound anxiety over the individual and social death menacing Polish identity under Soviet and Nazi occupation. Norman M. Naimark argues that the appearance of Gross'sNeighborshas created an entirely new dimension to the historiography of World War II in Poland. The book demonstrated, as has no other work, the extent to which the Poles were directly involved in the genocide of the Jews. The clarity and force of Gross's presentation provides Polish historiography with an unprecedented opportunity “to come to terms with the past.” The essay also suggests that the Jedwabne massacre needs to be looked at in the context of overall German policy “in the east” and in comparison to similar horrors taking place roughly at the same time in Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia. The Nazis intentionally (and surreptitiously) sought to incite pogroms in the region, filming and photographing the horrific events for audiences back home. Their own propaganda about the “Jewish-Bolshevik” menace both prompted and was ostensibly confirmed by the pogroms. In his response, Jan T. Gross replies to Roszkowski's criticism concerning historical credibility.

In this forum on Neighbors by Jan T. Gross (Princeton, 2001), four scholars respond to the book and to the issues of evidence, causality, and interpretation that it raises. Janine P. Holc summarizes the contents and the book's approach and explores the roles of individual choice, on the one hand, and ethnic identity categories, on the other, in Gross's presentation of the causes of the massacre of the Jewish residents of Jedwabne by their non-Jewish neighbors. She argues for an approach to reading Neighbors that links the emotive mode in which some of the narrative is expressed to a productive engagement with traumatic or violent historical episodes. This type of history resists finality and closure and creates an avenue for active engagement by members of ethnic (or other) communities with violent and traumatic pasts. Wojciech Roszkowski discusses three aspects of the debate on Neighbors in Poland: the credibility of the book, the facts of 10 July 1941 and their moral meaning, and the representativeness of the Jedwabne case and the question of “innocence” or “guilt” of nations. While arguing that the credibility of Neighbors is low and that Gross's thesis that “one half of the Jedwabne inhabitants killed the other half” has not been proven, he writes that it is impossible to deny Polish participation in the massacre. Yet, as with other documented cases of Polish wartime evildoing, it is unfair to blow this incident out of proportion and produce unwarranted generalizations. Past and present realities are always more complicated than simple stereotypes that “Poles” or “Jews” are to blame or that they have always been innocent. William W. Hagen argues that Gross vacillates between a robust positivism promising that “a reconstruction” of “what actually took place” is possible, such that guilt and motive may confidently be assigned, and an interpretive pessimism suggesting that “we will never 'understand' why it happened.” In his assignment of causality, Gross offers a largely unconnected, in part inferential or speculative, array of determinants and motives. Although some of the causes Gross adduces are certainly persuasive, his analysis does not address the Jedwabne perpetrators' and witnesses' perception of the cultural meaning of the inhuman violence their Jewish neighbors were suffering. Hagen offers some suggestive historical evidence on the Poles' subjective response to the Jewish genocide and to their own wartime fate, arguing that the Jedwabne Poles' participation in the mass murder of the Jews must be conceived as a response, mediated by the penetration of ideological anti-Semitism into the countryside, to profound anxiety over the individual and social death menacing Polish identity under Soviet and Nazi occupation. Norman M. Naimark argues that the appearance of Gross's Neighbors has created an entirely new dimension to the historiography of World War II in Poland. The book demonstrated, as has no other work, the extent to which the Poles were directly involved in the genocide of the Jews. The clarity and force of Gross's presentation provides Polish historiography with an unprecedented opportunity “to come to terms with the past.” The essay also suggests that the Jedwabne massacre needs to be looked at in the context of overall German policy “in the east” and in comparison to similar horrors taking place roughly at the same time in Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia. The Nazis intentionally (and surreptitiously) sought to incite pogroms in the region, filming and photographing the horrific events for audiences back home. Their own propaganda about the “Jewish-Bolshevik” menace both prompted and was ostensibly confirmed by the pogroms. In his response, Jan T. Gross replies to Roszkowski's criticism concerning historical credibility.

Nowadays the post-Soviet Central Asian countries face a broad range of security challenges and threats. Some of them are systemic in nature, while others occur sporadically. Many challenges and threats are coming from the outside the region, but the countries’ internal situation and background including historical, economic, social and political aspects. The reaction in the countries on religious-based radicalism and movements like ISIS is an ambiguous. The range and level of the threats and challenges depends on various reasons and different in all Central Asian countries. But the case of ISIS is very unprecedented and needs to be under the special analysis through the political and socio-economic dimension in all states. The different ways of development chosen by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and different background including borders, political systems, the role of religion and social stability defines the reflection to the threat in different way. Tajilistan and Uzbekistan are in high risk zone. The existing regional and extra regional organizations as CSTO and SCO are important in terms of security strengthening in Central Asia. Analyzing the general social, economic and religion climate picture in terms of absorbing or reflecting religious based extremism and ISIS the real power to stop it can be both effective inter-governmental cooperation and coordination with strong civil society support. Keywords: security, Central Asia, extremism, ISIS;

В статье на основе воспоминаний современников и архивных источников рассматри- вается история развития кинематографа в республиках Северного Кавказа в 1960-е — 1980-е гг. Подчеркивается, что создание телевизионного документального и игрового кино в регионе во многом было результатом национальной культурной политики. Вместе с тем, отмечается существенное влияние на становление киноискусства практики культурно- го патернализма, получившей распространение в среде местной политической элиты в изучаемый период, и значительный вклад руководителя Гостелерадио Северо-Осетинской АССР А. Т. Агузарова в создание региональной базы кинопроизводства на Северном Кавка- зе. Региональное киноискусство развивалось в рамках государственной программы «соци- ального заказа». Деятели кино решали конкретные задачи пропаганды советского образа жизни, воспитания людей в духе преданности социалистическим идеалам, патриотизма и интернационализма. Необходимость соблюдения идеологических, цензурных требований существенно ограничивала свободу творческого поиска, нередко приводила к схематизму, плакатности сюжетов и образов. Но в целом транслируемые северокавказским кинемато- графом гуманистические идеалы добра, справедливости, мирного сосуществования наро- дов перекликались с настроениями большинства многонационального населения региона и находили отклик в сердцах обычных людей. The article on the basis of the memories of the contemporaries and the archival data considers the history of the development of cinematography in the North Caucasus’ republics in the 1960s — 1980s. It highlights, that the creation of television documentary and feature films production in the region was largely a result of the national cultural policy. The practice of cultural paternalism common among political elite in the reviewed period had an essential impact on the development of cinematography, also of great significance was contribution of A. T. Aguzarov, then head of the State television and radio of North Ossetian ASSR, to the formation of a regional base of filmmaking in the North Caucasus. The regional film art was developed within the frame of the state program of «social request». Cinematography proponents solved definite tasks for propaganda of the Soviet way of life, of upbringing in the spirit of devotion to socialist ideals, patriotism and internationalism. The need to comply with ideological, censorial demands substantially limited the freedom of creative search, often led to schematism, «posterism» of subjects and images. However in general the humanistic ideas of goodness, fairness, peaceful coexistence of the peoples, transmitted by North Caucasian cinematography, resonated with the moods of the majority of the region’ multinational population and responded in the hearts of ordinary people.

The article reveals the relevance of the research topic, taking into account such factors that affect the mechanism of legal regulation of land relations, such as the composition of Ukrainian lands, the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, the influence of the object of land relations on their occurrence. We emphasize that the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, including had a negative impact on the regulation of land relations in general and the legal regime of certain categories of land (in particular, temporarily occupied territories, land contaminated by chemical substances from explosions, oil products, unexploded ammunition and mines, etc.), which in turn also requires thorough scientific research of land legal relations and their separate elements, in particular the object of land relations. The study of the general theoretical and legal characteristics of land as an object of law is based on philosophical and general legal approaches to understanding the concepts of "object", "object of law" and "object of legal relations", the theory of legal schools, legal traditions of land law, normative and legal approaches of individual countries of the post-Soviet space. It is emphasized that the land belongs to the category of "general object of land relations" regardless of its purpose, category and form of ownership. It is substantiated that land is a component and product of nature; property with a special legal status; universal, complex, valuable, immovable and space-limited object of production; the basic space for the functioning of the state and people's lives. Land acts as an element of ecological, social and economic component of social relations. Such specific features of land as an object of legal relations determine a special regime of its legal regulation. It is emphasized that land as an object of legal relations is often considered as a complex legal phenomenon, which includes such elements as "land plot" and "individually determined land share (share)". Land legislative practice is distinguished by the division of land into separate categories depending on the characteristic features and properties of each category. This division of land into categories depending on geological and climatic conditions is noted in the legislation of a number of countries (for example, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Georgia, etc.) and forms special legal regimes for each category. It was noted that the prospects for further exploration in this direction are the following aspects: determination of the legal status of the lands that are under the temporary occupation of the Russian Federation; change of land category due to contamination by chemical substances from explosions, oil products, unexploded ordnance and land mining; holding the Russian Federation and its representatives accountable for ecocrimes and compensating material damages caused to the environment and land owners; formation and implementation of soil restoration programs, etc.

Collectives bring people and their concerns together. In the twenty-first century, this assembly happens across different material and virtual spaces that, together, establish connective layers of society. A kind of politics has emerged that seeks new forms of communication and expression and proposes new modes of (co)existence. Riots in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, the repair of a public village centre, railway workers’ strikes, green activists’ protests, songs in support of tsunami victims… These are some examples of collective actions that unite people and places. But very often these kinds of events and social practices take place and fade away too quickly without visible traces of becoming collectives. This article focuses on the contingent spaces that enable collective action and provide possibilities for “peripheral” concerns and communities to become public. The concept of “diasporas” is widened to permit discussion of how emerging (international) communities make their voices heard through political events. Some theoretical concepts will be illustrated, using two examples of collective action on 1 May 2009 that demonstrate different initiatives concerning the global (economic) crisis. Assembling Collectives and Affective Events Building a house/centre and singing for something: these are examples of practices that bring people and their ideals together in a collective action or event. This article discusses the different communities that evolve within spaces that enable collective action. These communities are formed not only on the basis of nationality, occupation, or race; elements of (temporal) membership are created out of a wide spectrum of affiliations and a sense of solidarity. Hinchliffe (13) argues that collective action can be seen as a collection of affects that link together disparate places and times, and thus the collective is a matter of considerable political interest. The emergent spaces of collective action publicise particular concerns that may connect already existing but (spatially) dispersed communities and diasporas. However, there is a need to discuss the affects, places, and temporalities that make the assemblage of new collectivities possible. The political potential of collective spaces needs careful elaboration in order that such initiatives may continue to grow without extending the influence of existing (capitalist) powers. Various communities connected “glocally” (locally and globally) can call new publics into existence, posing questions to politics which are not yet “of politics” (Thrift 3). Thus collective action can invent new connecting concerns and practices that catalyse (political) change in society. To understand the complex spatiality of collective action and community formations, it is crucial to look at processes of “affect”. Affects occur in society as “in-becoming” atmospheres and “imitation-suggestions” (Brennan 1-10) that stimulate concerns and motivate practices. The “imitation” can also be an invention that creatively binds existing know-how and experiences into a local-social context. Thinking about affects within the spaces of collective action provides a challenge to rethink what is referred to simply as the “social”. Massumi (228) argues that such affects are virtual expressions of the actually existing things that embody them; however, affects such as emotions and feelings are also autonomous to the degree that they exceed the particular body within which they are presently confined. The emerging bodies, or spaces, of collective action thus carry the potential to transform coexistence across both intellectual and physical boundaries, and communication technology has been instrumental in linking the affective spaces of collective action across both time and space. According to Thrift, the collision of different space-times very often provokes a “stutter” in social relations: the jolt which arises from new encounters, new connections, new ways of proceeding. But how can these turbulent spheres and trajectories of collective action be described and discussed? Here the mechanisms of “events” themselves need to be addressed. The “event” represents, abstractly, a spatio-temporal locus where different concerns and practices are encountered and negotiated. “Event” refers to an incoming, or emerging, object (agent) triggering, through various affective responses, new ideas and initiatives (Clark 33). In addition to revolutions or tsunamis, there are also smaller-scale events that change how people live and come together. In this sense, events can be understood to combine individual and social “bodies” within collective action and imaginations. As Appadurai has argued, the imagination is central to all forms of agency, is itself a social practice, and is the key component of our new global order (Appadurai 29-30). Flusty (7) argues that the production of the global is as present in our day-to-day thoughts and actions as it is in the mass movement of capital, information, and populations which means that there should be the potential to include more people in the democratic process (Whatmore). This process can be seen to be a defining characteristic of the term cosmopolitics which Thrift describes as: “one of the best hopes for changing our engagement with the political by simply acknowledging that there is more there” (Thrift 189). For many, these hopes are based on a new kind of telematic connectedness, in which tele- and digital communications represent the beginning of a global networked consciousness based on the continuous exchange of ideas, both cognitive and affective. Examples of Events and Collectives Taking Place on 1 May 2009 The first day in May is traditionally dedicated to working people, and there are many public gatherings to express solidarity with workers and left-wing (“red”) policy. Issues concerning work and various productions are complex, and recently the global economic crisis exposed some weaknesses in neoliberal capitalism. Different participatory/collective actions and spaces are formed to make some common concerns public at the same time in various locations. The two following examples are part of wider “ideoscapes” (official state ideologies and counter-ideologies) (see Appadurai) in action that help to illustrate both the workings of twenty-first century global capitalism and the translocal character of the public concern. EuroMayDay One alternative form of collective action is EuroMayDay, which has taken place on May 1 every year since 2001 in several cities across (mainly Western) Europe. For example, in 2006 a total of about 300,000 young demonstrators took part in EuroMayDay parades in 20 EU cities (Wikipedia). The purpose of this political action is “to fight against the widespread precarisation of youth and the discrimination of migrants in Europe and beyond: no borders, no workfare, no precarity!” (EuroMayDay). This manifesto indicates that the aim of the collective action is to direct public attention to the insecure conditions of immigrants and young people across Europe. These groups may be seen to constitute a kind of European “diasporic collective” in which the whole of Europe is figured as a “problem area” in which unemployment, displacement, and (possibly) destitution threaten millions of lives. In this emerging “glocality”, there is a common, and urgent, need to overcome the boundaries of exclusion. Here, the proposed collective body (EuroMayDay) is described as a process for action, thus inviting translocal public participation. The body has active nodes in (Western) Europe (Bremen, Dortmund, Geneva, Hamburg, Hanau, Lisbon, Lausanne, Malaga, Milan, Palermo, Tübingen, Zürich) and beyond (Tokyo, Toronto, Tsukuba). The collective process marks these cities on the map through a webpage offering contacts with each of the “nodes” in the network. On 1 May 2009, May Day events, or parades, took place in all the cities listed above. The “nodes” of the EuroMayDay process prepared posters and activities following some common lines, although collective action had to be performed locally in every city. By way of example, let’s look at how this collective action realised its potential in Berlin, Germany. The posters (EuroMayDay Berlin, "Call") articulate the oppressive and competitive power of capitalism which affects everyone, everyday, like a machine: it constitutes “the permanent crisis”. One’s actual or potential unemployment and/or immigrant status may cause insecurity about the future. There is also a focus on liminal or transitional time, and a call for a new collectivity to overcome oppressive forces from above that protect the interests of the State and the banks. EuroMayDay thus calls for the weaving together of different forms of resistance against a deeply embedded capitalist system and the bringing together of common concerns for the attention of the general public through the May Day parade. Another poster (EuroMayDay Berlin, "May"), depicting the May Day parade, centres around the word “KRISE?” (“crisis”). The poster ends with an optimistic call to action, expressing a desire to free capitalism from institutional oppression and recreate it in a more humanistic way. Together, these two posters represent fragments of the “ideoscope” informing the wider, collective process. In Berlin in 2009, thousands of people (mostly young) participated in the May Day parade (which started from the public square Bebelplatz), backed by a musical soundtrack (see Rudi). Some people also had posters in their hands, displaying slogans like: “For Human Rights”; “Class Struggle”; “Social Change Not Climate Change”; and “Make Capitalism a Thing of the Past”. Simultaneously, dozens of other similar parades were taking place across the cities of Europe, all bearing “accelerated affective hope” (Rosa) for political change and demanding justice in society. Unfortunately, the May Day parade in Berlin took a violent turn at night, when some demonstrators attacked police and set cars on fire. There were also clashes during demonstrations in Hamburg (Kirschbaum). The media blamed the clashes also on the economic recession and recently dashed hopes for change. The Berlin May Day parade event was covered on the EuroMayDay webpage and on television news. This collective action connected many people; some participated in the parade, and many more saw the clashes and burning cars on their screens. The destructive and critical force of the collective action brought attention to some of the problems associated with youth employment and immigration though, sadly, without offering any concrete proposals for a solution to the problem. The emotional character of the street marches, and later the street fighting, were arguably an important aspect of the collective action inasmuch as they demonstrated the potential for citizens to unite, translocally, around affective as well as material grief (a process that has been given dramatic expression in more recent times with events in Egypt, Libya, and Syria). Further, although the recent May Day events have achieved very little in terms of material results, the network remains active, and further initiatives are likely in the future. “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” On 1 May 2009, about 11,000 people participated in a public “thought-bee” in Estonia (located in north-eastern Europe in the region of the Baltic Sea) and (through the Estonian diaspora) abroad. The “thought-bee” can be understood as a civil society initiative designed to bring people together for discussion and problem-solving with regards to everyday social issues. The concept of the “bee” combines work with pleasure. The bee tradition was practised in old Estonian farming communities, when families in adjacent villages helped one another. Bees were often organised for autumn harvesting, and the intense, communal work was celebrated by offering participants food and drink. Similarly, during the Soviet era, on certain Saturdays there were organised days (obligatory) for collective working (e.g. to reconstruct sites or to pick up litter). Now the “bee” concept has become associated with brainstorming in small groups across the country as well as abroad. The number of participants in the May 1st thought-bee was relatively large, given that Estonia’s total population is only 1.4 million. The funding of the initiative combined public and private sources, e.g. Estonian Civil Society Foundation, the European Commission, and some companies. The information sheet, presented to participants of the May 1st thought-bee, explains the event’s purpose in this way: The main purpose of today’s thought-bee is to initiate as many actions as possible that can change life in Estonia for the better. My Estonia, our more enjoyable and more efficient society, will appear through smaller and bigger thoughts. In the thought-bee we think how to make life better for our own home-place... Let’s think together and do it! (Teeme Ära, "Teeme", translated from Estonian) The civil society event grew out of a collective action on 3 May 2008 to pick up and dispose of litter throughout Estonia. The thought-bee initiative was coordinated by volunteers. The emotional appeal to participate in the thought-bee event on May 1st was presented and circulated in newspapers, radio, television, Internet portals, and e-mails. Famous people called on residents to take part in the public discussion events. Some examples of arguments for the collective activity included the economic crisis, the need for new jobs, self-responsibility, environmental pressures, and the general need to learn and find communal solutions. The thought-bee initiative took place simultaneously in about 500 “thought-halls” all over Estonia and abroad. Small groups of people registered, chose main discussion topics (with many suggestions from organisers of the bee) and made their groups visible as nodes on the “initiative” webpage. Other people had the opportunity of reading several proposals from the various thought-halls and of joining as members of the public brainstorming event on 1 May. The virtual and living map of the halls presented them as (green) nodes with location, topics, members, and discussion leaders. Various sites such as schools, clubs, cultural centres, municipality buildings, and theatres became part of the multiple and synchronous “space-times” within the half-day thought-bee event. Participants in the thought-bee were asked to bring their own food to share and, in some municipalities, open concerts were held to celebrate the day. These practices indicate some continuity with the national tradition of bees, where work has always been combined with pleasure. Most “thought-halls” were located in towns and smaller local centres as well as on several Estonian islands. Moreover, these thought-halls provided for both as face-to-face and online encounters. Further, one English-speaking discussion group was organised in Tallinn so that non-Estonian speakers could also participate. However, the involvement of Russian-speaking people in the initiative remained rather limited. It is important to note that these embodied spaces of participation were also to be found outside of Estonia—in Brussels, Amsterdam, Toronto, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Prague, Baltimore, New York, and San Diego—and, in this way, the Estonian diaspora was also given the opportunity to become involved in the collective action. Following the theories of Thrift and Clark cited at the beginning of this article, it is interesting to see an event in which simultaneously connected places, embodying multiple voices, becomes part of the communal present with a shared vision of the future. The conclusions of each thought-hall discussion group were recorded on video shortly after the event. These videos were made available on the “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” webpage. The most frequently addressed topics of the thought-bee (in order of importance) were: community activities and collaboration; entrepreneurship and new jobs; education, values; free time and sport; regional development; rural life; and the environment and nature conservation (PRAXIS). The participants of the collective action were aware of the importance of local as well as national initiatives as a catalyst for change. The initiative “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” continued after the events of May Day 2009; people discussed issues and suggested proposals through the “initiative” webpage and supported the continuation of the collective action (Teeme Ära, "Description"). Environmental concerns (e.g. planting trees, reducing noise, and packaging waste) appear as important elements in these imaginings along with associated other practices for the improvement of daily life. It is important to understand the thought-bee event as a part of an emerging collective action that started with a simple litter clean-up and grew, through various other successful local community initiatives, into shared visions for a better future predicated upon the principles of glocality and coexistence. The example indicates that (international) NGOs can apply, and also invent, radical information politics to change the terms of debate in a national context by providing a voice for groups and issues that would otherwise remain unheard and unseen (see also Atkinson and Scurrah 236-44). Conclusions The collective actions discussed above have created new publics and contingent spaces to bring additional questions and concerns into politics. In both cases, the potential of “the event” (as theorised in the introduction of this article) came to the foreground, creating an additional international layer of temporal connectivity between many existing social groups such as unemployed young people or members of a village union. These events were both an “outcome” of, and an attempt to change, the involuntary exclusion of certain “peripheral” groups within the melting pot that the European Union has become. As such, they may be thought of as extending the concept of “diasporas” to include emerging platforms of collective action that aim to make problematic issues visible and multiple voices heard across the wider public. This, in turn, illustrates the need to rethink diasporas in the context of the intensive de-territorialisation of human concerns, “space-times and movement-trajectories yet to (be)come” (Braziel and Mannur 18). Both the examples of collective action discussed here campaigned for “changing the world” through a one-day event and may thus be understood in terms of Rosa’s theory of “social acceleration” (Rosa). This theory shows how both to the “contraction of the present” and the general instability of contemporary life have given rise to a newly affective desire to improve life through an expression of the collective will. Such a tendency can clearly take on far more radical forms as has been recently demonstrated by the mass protests and revolts against autocratic ruling powers in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. In this article, however, cosmopolitics is better understood in terms of the particular skills (most evident in the Estonian case) and affective spheres that mobilised in suggestions to bring about local action and global change. Together, these examples of collective action are part of a wider “ideoscape” (Appadurai) trying to reduce the power of capitalism and of the state by encouraging alternative forms of collective action that are not bound up solely with earning money or serving the state as a “salient” citizen. However, it could be argued that “EuroMayDay” is ultimately a reactionary movement used to highlight the oppressive aspects of capitalism without offering clear alternatives. By contrast, “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” has facilitated interactive public discussion and the practice of local skills that have the power to improve everyday life and the environment in a material and quantifiable way. Such changes in collective action also illustrate the speed and “imitative capacity stimulating expressive interactions” that now characterise everyday life (Thrift). Crucially, both these collective events were achieved through rapid advances in communication technologies in recent times; this technology made it possible to spread know-how as well as feelings of solidarity and social contact across the world. Further research on these fascinating developments in g/local politics is clearly urgently needed to help us better understand the changes in collective action currently taking place. Acknowledgements This research was supported by Estonian Science Foundation grant SF0130008s07 and by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence CECT). References Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 25-48. Atkinson, Jeffrey, and Martin Scurrah. Globalizing Social Justice: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Bringing about Social Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2009. Braziel, Jana Evans, and Anita Mannur. “Nation, Migration, Globalisation: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies.” Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Eds. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 1-18. Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. London: Continuum, 2004. Clark, Nigel. “The Play of the World.” Using Social Theory: Thinking Through Research. Eds. Michael Pryke, Gillian Rose, and Sarah Whatmore. London: Sage, 2003. 28-46. EuroMayDay. “What Is EuroMayDay?” 23 May 2009. ‹http://www.euromayday.org/about.php›. EuroMayDay Berlin. “Call of May Parade.” 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://maydayberlin.blogsport.de/aufruf/text-only/›. EuroMayDay Berlin. “May Parade Poster.” 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://maydayberlin.blogsport.de/propaganda/›. Flusty, Steven. De-Coca-Colonization. Making the Globe from the Inside Out. New York: Routledge, 2004. Hinchliffe, Steve. Geographies of Nature: Societies, Environments, Ecologies. London: Sage, 2007. Kirschbaum, Erik. “Police Hurt in May Day Clashes in Germany.” Reuters, 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5401UI20090501›. Massumi, Brian. “The Autonomy of Affect.” Deleuze: A Critical Reader. Ed. Paul Patton. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. 217-39. PRAXIS. “Minu Eesti mõttetalgute ideede tähtsamad analüüsitulemused” (Main analysing results about ideas of My Estonia thought-bee). 26 Oct. 2009. ‹http://www.minueesti.ee/index.php?leht=6&mID=949›. Rosa, Hartmut. “Social Acceleration: Ethical and Political Consequences of a Desynchronised High-Speed Society.” Constellations 10 (2003): 1-33. Rudi 5858. “Mayday-Parade-Demo in Berlin 2009.” 3 Aug. 2009. ‹http://wn.com/Rudi5858›. Teeme Ära. “Teeme Ära! Minu Eesti” (Let’s Do It! My Estonia). Day Program of 1 May 2009. Printed information sheet, 2009. Teeme Ära. “Description of Preparation and Content of Thought-bee.” 20 Apr. 2009. ‹http://www.minueesti.ee/?leht=321›. Thrift, Nigel. Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics and Affect. London: Routledge, 2008. Whatmore, Sarah. “Generating Materials.” Using Social Theory: Thinking Through Research. Eds. Michael Pryke, Gillian Rose and Sarah Whatmore. London: Sage, 2003. 89-104. Wikipedia. “EuroMayDay.” 23 May 2009. ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroMayDay›.

Home is the place where one knows oneself best; it is where one belongs, a space one longs to be. Indeed, the longing for home seems to be grounded in an anthropological need for anchorage. Although in English the German loanword ‘Heimat’ is often used synonymously with ‘home’, many would have claimed up till now that it has been a word particularly ill equipped for use outside the German speaking community, owing to its specific cultural baggage. However, I would like to argue that – not least due to the political dimension of home (such as in homeland security and homeland affairs) – the yearning for a home has experienced a semantic shift, which aligns it more closely with Heimat, a term imbued with the ambivalence of home and homeland intertwined (Morley 32). I will outline the German specificities below and invite an Australian analogy. A resoundingly positive understanding of the German term ‘Heimat’ likens it to “an intoxicant, a medium of transport; it makes people feel giddy and spirits them to pleasant places. To contemplate Heimat means to imagine an uncontaminated space, a realm of innocence and immediacy.“ (Rentschler 37) While this description of Heimat may raise expectations of an all-encompassing idyll, for most German speakers “…there is hardly a more ambivalent feeling, hardly a more painful mixture of happiness and bitterness than the experience vested in the word ‘Heimat’.” (Reitz 139) The emotional charge of the idiom is of quite recent origin. Traditionally, Heimat stimulates connotations of ‘origin’, ‘birth place, of oneself and one’s ancestors’ and even of ‘original area of settlement and homeland’. This corresponds most neatly with such English terms as ‘native land’, ‘land of my birth’, ‘land of my forefathers’ or ‘native shores’. Added to the German conception of Heimat are its sensitive associations relating, on the one hand, to Romanticism and its idolisation of the fatherland, and on the other, to the Nazi blood-and-soil propaganda, which brought Heimat into disrepute for many and added to the difficulties of translating the German word. A comparison with similar terms in Romance languages makes this clear. Speakers of those tongues have an understanding of home and homeland, which is strongly associated with the father-figure: the Greek “patra”, Latin and Italian “patria” and the French “patrie”, as well as patriarch, patrimony, patriot, and patricide. The French come closest to sharing the concept to which Heimat’s Germanic root of “heima” refers. For the Teutons “heima” denoted the traditional space and place of a clan, society or individual. However, centuries of migration, often following expulsion, have imbued Heimat with ambivalent notions; feelings of belonging and feelings of loss find expression in the term. Despite its semantic opaqueness, Heimat expresses a “longing for a wholeness and unity” (Strzelczyk 109) which for many seems lost, especially following experiences of alienation, exile, diaspora or ‘simply’ migration. Yet, it is in those circumstances, when Heimat becomes a thing of the past, that it seems to manifest itself most clearly. In the German context, the need for Heimat arose particularly after World War Two, when experiences of loss and scenes of devastation, as well as displacement and expulsion found compensation of sorts in the popular media. Going to the cinema was the top pastime in Germany in the 1950s, and escapist Heimat films, which showed idyllic country scenery, instead of rubble-strewn cityscapes, were the most well-liked of all. The industry pumped out kitsch films in quick succession to service this demand and created sugar-coated, colour-rich Heimat experiences on celluloid that captured the audience’s imagination. Most recently, the genre experienced something of a renaissance in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent accession of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, also referred to as East Germany) to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany) in 1990. Described as one of the most seminal moments in modern history, the events led to large-scale change; in world politics, strategic alliances, but were most closely felt at the personal and societal level, reshaping community and belonging. Feelings of disbelief and euphoria occupied the hearts and minds of people all around the world in the days following the night of the 9 November 1989. However, the fall of the Wall created within weeks what the Soviet Union had been unable to manage in the previous 40 years; the sense of a distinctly Eastern identity (cf. Heneghan 148). Most of the initial positive perceptions slowly gave way to a hangover when the consequences of the drastic societal changes became apparent in their effects on populace. Feelings of disenchantment and disillusionment followed the jubilation and dominated the second phase of socio-cultural unification, when individuals were faced with economic and emotional hardship or were forced to relocate, as companies folded, politically tainted degrees and professions were abolished and entire industry sectors disappeared. This reassessment of almost every aspect of people’s lifestyles led many to feel that their familiar world had dissipated and their Heimat had been lost, resulting in a rhetoric of “us” versus “them”. This conceptual divide persisted and was cemented by the perceived difficulties in integration that had emerged, manifesting a consciousness of difference that expressed itself metaphorically in the references to the ‘Wall in the mind’. Partly as a reaction to these feelings and partly also as a concession to the new citizens from the East, Western backed and produced unification films utilised the soothing cosmos of the Heimat genre – so well rehearsed in the 1950s – as a framework for tales about unification. Peter Timm’s Go, Trabi, Go (1991) and Wolfgang Büld’s sequel Go, Trabi, Go 2. Das war der Wilde Osten [That Was the Wild East, 1992] are two such films which revive “Heimat as a central cultural construct through which aspects of life in the new Germany could be sketched and grasped.” (Naughton 125) The films’ references to Eastern and Western identity served as a powerful guarantor of feelings of belonging, re-assuring audiences on both sides of the mental divide of their idiosyncrasies, while also showing a way to overcome separation. These Heimat films thus united in spirit, emotion and consumer behaviour that which had otherwise not yet “grown together” (cf. Brandt). The renaissance of the Heimat genre in the 1990s gained further momentum in the media with new Heimat film releases as well as TV screenings of 1950s classics. Indeed Heimat films of old and new were generally well received, as they responded to a fragile psychological predisposition at a time of change and general uncertainty. Similar feelings were shared by many in the post-war society of the 1950s and the post-Wall Europe of the 1990s. After the Second World War and following the restructure after Nazism it was necessary to integrate large expellee groups into the young nation of the FRG. In the 1990s the integration of similarly displaced people was required, though this time they were having to cope less with territorial loss than with ideological implosions. Then and now, Heimat films sought to aid integration and “transcend those differences” (Naughton 125) – whilst not disputing their existence – particularly in view of the fact that Germany had 16 million new citizens, who clearly had a different cultural background, many of whom were struggling with perceptions of otherness as popularly expressed in the stereotypical ethnographies of “Easterners” and “Westerners”. The rediscovery of the concept of Heimat in the years following unification therefore not only mirrored the status quo but further to that allowed “for the delineation of a common heritage, shared priorities, and values with which Germans in the old and new states could identify.” (Naughton 125) Closely copying the optimism of the 1950s which promised audiences prosperity and pride, as well as a sense of belonging and homecoming into a larger community, the films produced in the early 1990s anticipated prosperity for a mobile and flexible people. Like their 1950s counterparts, “unification films ‘made in West Germany’ imagined a German Heimat as a place of social cohesion, opportunity, and prosperity” (Naughton 126). Following the unification comedies of the early 1990s, which were set in the period following the fall of the Wall, another wave of German film production shifted the focus onto the past, sacrificing the future dimension of the unification films. Leander Haußmann’s Sonnenallee (1999) is set in the 1970s and subscribes to a re-invention of one’s childhood, while Wolfgang Becker’s Goodbye Lenin (2003) in which the GDR is preserved on 79 square metres in a private parallel world, advocates a revival of aspects of the socialist past. Referred to as “Ostalgia”; a nostalgia for the old East, “a ‘GDR revival’ or the ‘renaissance of a GDR Heimatgefühl’” (Berdahl 197), the films achieved popular success. Ostalgia films utilised the formula of ‘walking down memory lane’ in varying degrees; thematising pleasing aspects of an imagined collective past and tempting audiences to revel in a sense of unity and homogeneous identity (cf. Walsh 6). Ostalgia was soon transformed from emotional and imaginary reflection into an entire industry, manifesting itself in the “recuperation, (re)production, marketing, and merchandising of GDR products as well as the ‘museumification’ of GDR everyday life” (Berdahl 192). This trend found further expression in a culture of exhibitions, books, films and cabaret acts, in fashion and theme parties, as well as in Trabi-rallies which celebrated or sent up the German Democratic Republic in response to the perceived public humiliation at the hands of West German media outlets, historians and economists. The dismissal of anything associated with the communist East in mainstream Germany and the realisation that their consumer products – like their national history – were disappearing in the face of the ‘Helmut Kohl-onisation’ sparked this retro-Heimat cult. Indeed, the reaction to the disappearance of GDR culture and the ensuing nostalgia bear all the hallmarks of Heimat appreciation, a sense of bereavement that only manifests itself once the Heimat has been lost. Ironically, however, the revival of the past led to the emergence of a “new” GDR (Rutschky 851), an “imaginary country put together from the remnants of a country in ruins and from the hopes and anxieties of a new world” (Hell et al. 86), a fictional construct rather than a historical reality. In contrast to the fundamental social and psychological changes affecting former GDR citizens from the end of 1989, their Western counterparts were initially able to look on without a sense of deep personal involvement. Their perspective has been likened to that of an impartial observer following the events of a historical play (cf. Gaschke 22). Many saw German unification as an enlargement of the West; as soon as they had exported their currency, democracy, capitalism and freedom to the East, “blossoming landscapes” were sure to follow (Kohl). At first political events did not seem to cause a major disruption to the lives of most people in the old FRG, except perhaps the need to pay higher tax. This understanding proved a major underestimation of the transformation process that had gripped all of Germany, not just the Eastern part. Nevertheless, few predicted the impact that far-reaching changes would have on the West; immigration and new minorities alter the status quo of any society, and with Germany’s increase in size and population, its citizens in both East and West had to adapt and adjust to a new image and to new expectations placed on them from within and without. As a result a certain unease began to be felt by many an otherwise self-assured individual. Slower and less obvious than the transition phase experienced by most East Germans, the changes in West German society and consciousness were nevertheless similar in their psychological effects; resulting in a subtle feeling of displacement. Indeed, it was soon noted that “the end of German division has given rise to a sense of crisis in the West, particularly within the sphere of West German culture, engendering a Western nostalgica for the old FRG” (Cooke 35), also referred to as Westalgia. Not too dissimilar to the historical rehabilitation of the East played out in Ostalgic fashion, films appeared which revisit moments worthy of celebration in West German history, such as the 1954 Soccer World Championship status which is at the centre of the narrative in Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern [Miracle of Bern, 2003]. Hommages to the 1968 generation (Hans Weingartner’s Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei [The Educators, 2004]) and requiems for West Berlin’s subculture (Leander Haußmann’s Herr Lehmann [Mr Lehmann, 2003]) were similar manifestations of this development. Ostalgic and Westalgic practices coexisted for several years after the turn of the millennium, and are a tribute to the highly complex interrelationship that exists between personal histories and public memories. Both narratives reveal “the politics, ambiguities, and paradoxes of memory, nostalgia, and resistance” (Berdahl 207). In their nostalgic contemplation of the good old days, Ostalgic and Westalgic films alike express a longing to return to familiar and trusted values. Both post-hoc constructions of a heimatesque cosmos demonstrate a very real reinvention of Heimat. Their deliberate reconstruction and reinterpretation of history, as well as the references to and glorification of personal memory and identity fulfil the task of imbuing history – in particular personal history – with dignity. As such these Heimat films work in a similar fashion to myths in the way they explain the world. The heimatesque element of Ostalgic and Westalgic films which allows for the potential to overcome crises reveals a great deal about the workings of myths in general. Irrespective of their content, whether they are cosmogonic (about the beginning of time), eschatological (about the end of time) or etiologic myths (about the origins of peoples and societal order), all serve as a means to cope with change. According to Hans Blumenberg, myth making may be seen as an attempt to counter the absolutism of reality (cf. Blumenberg 9), by providing a response to its seemingly overriding arbitrariness. Myths become a means of endowing life with meaning through art and thus aid positive self-assurance and the constructive usage of past experiences in the present and the future. Judging from the popular success of both Ostalgic and Westalgic films in unified Germany, one hopes that communication is taking place across the perceived ethnic divide of Eastern and Western identities. At the very least, people of quite different backgrounds have access to the constructions and fictions relating to one another pasts. By allowing each other insight into the most intimate recesses of their respective psychological make-up, understanding can be fostered. Through the re-activation of one’s own memory and the acknowledgment of differences these diverging narratives may constitute the foundation of a common Heimat. It is thus possible for Westalgic and Ostalgic films to fulfil individual and societal functions which can act as a core of cohesion and an aid for mutual understanding. At the same time these films revive the past, not as a liveable but rather as a readable alternative to the present. As such, the utilisation of myths should not be rejected as ideological misuse, as suggested by Barthes (7), nor should it allow for the cementing of pseudo-ethnic differences dating back to mythological times; instead myths can form the basis for a common narrative and a self-confident affirmation of history in order to prepare for a future in harmony. Just like myths in general, Heimat tales do not attempt to revise history, or to present the real facts. By foregrounding the evidence of their wilful construction and fictitious invention, it is possible to arrive at a spiritual, psychological and symbolic truth. Nevertheless, it is a truth that is essential for a positive experience of Heimat and an optimistic existence. What can the German situation reveal in an Australian or a wider context? Explorations of Heimat aid the socio-historical investigation of any society, as repositories of memory and history, escape and confrontation inscribed in Heimat can be read as signifiers of continuity and disruption, reorientation and return, and as such, ever-changing notions of Heimat mirror values and social change. Currently, a transition in meaning is underway which alters the concept of ‘home’ as an idyllic sphere of belonging and attachment to that of a threatened space; a space under siege from a range of perils in the areas of safety and security, whether due to natural disasters, terrorism or conventional warfare. The geographical understanding of home is increasingly taking second place to an emotional imaginary that is fed by an “exclusionary and contested distinction between the ‘domestic’ and the ‘foreign’ (Blunt and Dowling 168). As such home becomes ever more closely aligned with the semantics of Heimat, i.e. with an emotional experience, which is progressively less grounded in feelings of security and comfort, yet even more so in those of ambivalence and, in particular, insecurity and hysteria. This paranoia informs as much as it is informed by government policies and interventions and emerges from concerns for national security. In this context, home and homeland have become overused entities in discussions relating to the safeguarding of Australia, such as with the establishment of a homeland security unit in 2003 and annual conferences such as “The Homeland Security Summit” deemed necessary since 9/11, even in the Antipodes. However, these global connotations of home and Heimat overshadow the necessity of a reclaimation of the home/land debate at the national and local levels. In addressing the dispossession of indigenous peoples and the removal and dislocation of Aboriginal children from their homes and families, the political nature of a home-grown Heimat debate cannot be ignored. “Bringing them Home”, an oral history project initiated by the National Library of Australia in Canberra, is one of many attempts at listening to and preserving the memories of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders who, as children, were forcibly taken away from their families and homelands. To ensure healing and rapprochement any reconciliation process necessitates coming to terms with one’s own past as much as respecting the polyphonic nature of historical discourse. By encouraging the inclusion of diverse homeland and dreamtime narratives and juxtaposing these with the perceptions and constructions of home of the subsequent immigrant generations of Australians, a rich text, full of contradictions, may help generate a shared, if ambivalent, sense of a common Heimat in Australia; one that is fed not by homeland insecurity but one resting in a heimatesque knowledge of self. References Barthes, Roland. Mythen des Alltags. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1964 Berdahl, Daphne. “‘(N)ostalgie’ for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East German Things.” Ethnos 64.2 (1999): 192-207. Blumenberg, Hans. Arbeit am Mythos. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1979. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. 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That Was the Wild East. Film Culture, Unification, and the “New” Germany. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002. Rentschler, Eric. “There’s No Place Like Home: Luis Trenker’s The Prodigal Son (1934).” New German Critique 60 (Special Issue on German Film History, Autumn 1993): 33-56. Reitz, Edgar. “The Camera Is Not a Clock (1979).” In Eric Rentschler, ed. West German Filmmakers on Film: Visions and Voices. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988. 137-141. Rutschky, Michael. “Wie erst jetzt die DDR entsteht.” Merkur 49.9-10 (Sep./Oct. 1995): 851-64. Strzelczyk, Florentine. “Far Away, So Close: Carl Froelich’s Heimat.” In Robert C. Reimer, ed., Cultural History through the National Socialist Lens. Essays on the Cinema of the Third Reich. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000. 109-132. Walsh, Michael. “National Cinema, National Imaginary.” Film History 8 (1996): 5-17. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Ludewig, Alexandra. "Home Meets Heimat." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/12-ludewig.php>. APA Style Ludewig, A. (Aug. 2007) "Home Meets Heimat," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/12-ludewig.php>.