Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Russian and East European Studies'

In the past ten years or more, social complexity has taken center stage as the focus of archaeologists working on the Eurasian steppe. The Middle Bronze Age Sintashta period, ca. 2100 - 1700 BC, is often assumed to represent the apex of social complexity for the Bronze Age in the southern Urals region. This assumption has been based on the appearance of twenty-two fortified settlements, chariot burials, and intensified metal production. Some of these studies have incorporated the emergence and subsequent development of mobile pastoralism as their primary foci, while others have concerned themselves primarily with early forms of metal production and their association with seemingly nascent social hierarchies. Such variables are useful indicators of more complex forms of social organization usually accompanied by strong degrees of demographic centralization and social differentiation.

This dissertation explores the relationship between demographic centralization and the balance between social differentiation and integration based on the data collected during archaeological survey of 142 square km around and between two Sintashta period settlements, Stepnoye and Chernorech'ye, located in the Ui River valley of the southern Urals region, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russian Federation. Because of the multi-component nature of archaeological survey, materials recovered date from the Mesolithic to the twentieth century. However, the focus was on Bronze Age materials to better identify and evaluate changes between demographic centralization and social differentiation.

Center-hinterland dynamics and the use of historical capital (materials, practices, and places re-used in identifiable ways) were evaluated from the Middle Bronze Age Sintashta period through to the end of the Final Bronze Age. Based on the results of the Sintashta Collaborative Archaeological Research Project (SCARP) project, the ongoing work of Russian scholars, and the results of this dissertation, there is considerable evidence that it was in the Late Bronze Age that social complexity may have become more pronounced, even as the demographically centralized Sintashta period communities dispersed. The results of the landscape and materials analyses indicate strong possibilities for land-use and craft traditions carried through to the end of the Final Bronze Age, with such traditions acting as historical capital for later communities.

This dissertation aims in part to redress the shortage of close readings of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Aleksandr Rodchenko's joint project, the book Pro Eto. It explores the relationship between the book's visual and verbal aspects, treating the book and its images as objects that repay attentive looking and careful analysis. By these means this dissertation finds that the images do not simply illustrate the text, but have an intertextual relationship with it: sometimes the images suggest their own, alternative narrative, offering scenes that do not exist in the poem; sometimes they act as literary criticism, suggesting interpretations, supplying biographical information, and highlighting with their own form aspects of the poem's.

This analysis reveals Pro Eto's strong links with distant forms of art and literature. The poem's intricate ties to the book of Genesis and Victor Shklovsky's novel Zoo, written while the former literary critic was in exile in Berlin, evince an ambivalence about the manifestations of socialism in early-1920s Russia that is missing from much of Mayakovsky's work. At the same time Rodchenko's images, with their repeated references to Byzantine icons and Dadaist photomontage, expand the poem's scope and its concerns far beyond NEP-era Moscow. Thus my analysis finds that although Pro Eto is considered to be an emblematic Constructivist work, many of the received ideas about Russian Constructivism—the unswerving zeal of its practitioners, the utility of its production, and in particular the ideology-driven, sui-generis nature of the movement itself—are not supported by the book. Pro Eto's deep connections with art and literature outside of Bolshevik Russia contradict the idea—first set out by the Constructivists themselves and widely accepted by subsequent scholars—of Constructivism as an autochthonous movement, born of theory, and indebted neither to historical art movements nor to contemporary western ones. My analysis suggests that reading Pro Eto through the lens of Constructivist theory denies the work the richness, ambivalence and humor it gains when that theory is understood as being in conversation with artistic practice, rather than defining it.

The two Eastern enlargements in 2004 and 2007 marked a new chapter in the EU’s history, since it was the first time that the Union turned to enlarge eastwards. This thesis examines the borderline problem that arose with Article 49 of the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union, which gave the right to any European country that respects the principles of: liberty, democracy, human and fundamental rights, and the rule of law, to apply for membership in the EU.

This thesis approaches the EU’s borderline problem by taking on three case studies consisting of Hungary, Lithuania, and Ukraine, for the purpose of analyzing the Eastern enlargement and Ukraine’s potentials of becoming a member of the EU. The reason for doing so is to compare Ukraine’s potentials of becoming a member in the EU with two Eastern states that, like Ukraine, have been involved with the Soviet Union, and that despite their degree of involvement, have been successfully integrated in the EU.

As the EU has turned to enlarge eastwards, it gradually pushes its borderline with every enlargement, closer to Russian territory. Hence, it is necessary to investigate how potential integration of a country like Ukraine can affect the EU’s relations with Russia. The crucial aspect of the current relations between the EU and Russia is the interdependence of energy, where Ukraine is as a strategically important country, since it currently serves as a corridor between East (Russia) and West (EU). This thesis therefore shows that the problematic of potential integration of Ukraine goes much deeper than that of a geographical matter, and therefore touches other problem areas related to domestic political instability in Ukraine, and Russian political influence through its gas supplies.

This thesis approaches the EU’s borderline problem from a foreign political perspective by investigating Ukraine’s potentials of becoming a member of the EU and suggesting, by the assistance of Westberg’s theoretical framework of integration theories, a third generation of integration theories to be needed in order to meet the problematic of the enlargement towards East. The thesis further gives recommendations to how the EU could deal with its borderline problem by answering three research questions related to the enlargement problematic.

De två östutvidgningarna 2004 och 2007 utgjorde ett nytt kapitel i EU:s historia då det var första gången som Unionen påbörjade utvidgningen mot Öst. Denna uppsats undersöker gränsproblematiken som uppkom i samband med Artikel 49 i Maastricht Fördraget om Europeiska Unionen, vilken gav rätten till varje Europeiskt land som respekterar principerna om: frihet, demokrati, mänskliga och fundamentala rättigheter, samt rättsstat, att ansöka om medlemskap i EU.

Denna uppsats närmar sig EU:s gränsproblem genom att ta sig an tre fallstudier bestående av Ungern, Litauen, och Ukraina, i syfte att analysera östutvidgningen och Ukrainas potential att bli medlem i EU ur ett utrikespolitiskt perspektiv. Anledningen till detta är att jämföra Ukrainas potential att bli medlem i EU med två öststater som, i likhet med Ukraina, har varit involverade i Sovjet Unionen, men som oberoende graden av involvering med Ryssland, framgångsrikt blivit integrerade i EU.

Eftersom EU påbörjat utvidgningen mot Öst så förskjuts EU:s gräns gradvis, med varje östutvidgning, nära ryskt territorium. Därmed är det nödvändigt att utreda hur potentiell integrering av ett land som Ukraina kan påverka EU:s relationer med Ryssland. Den avgörande aspekten när det gäller relationerna mellan EU och Ryssland, är det ömsesidiga beroendet kring energi, där Ukraina utgör ett strategiskt viktigt land, eftersom det för närvarande verkar som en korridor mellan Öst (Ryssland) och Väst (EU). Denna uppsats visar att problematiken kring potentiell integrering av Ukraina rör problemområden bortom geografisk natur, så som inhemskt politisk instabilitet i Ukraina, samt Rysslands politiska inflytande genom energiförsörjning till Europa.

Denna uppsats närmar sig EU:s gränsproblem från ett utrikespolitiskt perspektiv genom att utreda Ukrainas potentiella medlemskap i EU. Den föreslår, med hjälp av Westbergs integrationsteoretiska ramverk, att en tredje generation av integrationsteorier är nödvändig för att analysera problematiken kring utvidgningen mot Öst. Uppsatsen ger rekommendationer till hur EU kan hantera sitt gränsproblem genom att svara på tre frågeställningar gällande utvidgningsproblematiken.

This dissertation investigates how the Holocaust and postwar sovietization shaped the dynamics of Jewish communities and ordinary life in southwestern Ukraine. I examine the relationship between state policy and the sphere of Jewish religious practice. Two research questions motivated this study: (1) What was the trajectory of the lives of Eastern European Jews who came back from Nazi concentration camps? and (2) How did Jews negotiate their religious and public identities in an everyday setting? To examine these questions, the study illuminates the postwar life of one group of Jewish Holocaust survivors in the periphery of the Soviet Union. Literature on postwar Soviet Jewry has focused almost exclusively on the lives of elites in the center. This study enhances our understanding of Jewish integration into Soviet society.

I used oral history, collected during my own ethnographic fieldwork in Israel and Ukraine, as well as state archives to analyze processes of return and integration. Interviews with ordinary people permit a social perspective on political developments and communal reconstruction. Statistical data and official communication provide the framework necessary to show the dynamics of Jewish life. Combining archival material with oral history demonstrates that the impact of Soviet rule on Jewish life after World War II is more complex than previously portrayed. Topics examined include the liberation from Nazi concentration camps, arrival experiences in Transcarpathia, the reconstruction of private and public Jewish life in the late 1940s and everyday Jewish practice in the 1950s and early 60s.

Ordinary Jews fully integrated into society, succeeded in their careers and expressed their Jewish identity through religious practice. The findings include individual negotiation of demands in secular society and the methods of circumventing obstacles that restricted religious practice. The analysis of the interviews, however, prompts a reconsideration of postwar Soviet Jewish life with regard to persecution and emigration narratives.

An academic dialog concerning the intersectionality of national origin, economic class and gender, as mutually constitutive elements of migration, set the context for my inquiry into the experiences of wives who are barred from paid labor by their restricted visa status. Guided by grounded theory, I conducted seventeen semi-structured qualitative interviews to examine ways in which a move to Silicon Valley under a restricted visa class changes the self-image of women, and how they evaluate this change. I found that the ambiguous agency construct of women socialized in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras facilitated their choice to migrate despite the visa restrictions. After emigrating, the women tended to embrace values of individualism and self-reliance, which reinforced their professional ambitions. However, the absence of professional options created a split between the women’s lived experiences and their self-representation. In addition, I found that a visa that prohibits employment creates a homogenizing effect on women’s self-images, putting them on similar personal and professional tracks and making their legal and economic status less predictable. These findings suggest that structural strategies might be adopted to help these women reclaim their self-images and exert more control over the selection and pursuit of their goals.

In the years since unification, the phenomenon of xenophobia ( Ausländerfeindlichkeit) in Germany has been largely understood as an "east German problem." The recent discovery of a series of murders by an underground cell of eastern German neo-Nazis – who killed eight Turkish immigrants and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006 – has again directed Germany's attention to the problem of Ausländerfeindlichkeit and right-wing extremism in eastern Germany. Scholars, politicians, and members of the media base their treatment of the subject on the assumption that eastern Germans are more xenophobic than western Germans, despite the fact that very few foreigners actually live in eastern Germany. This thesis employs historical analysis, population data, and public opinion survey data to determine whether or not this assumption holds true.

Ausländerfeindlichkeit, meaning "hostility toward foreigners," is a type of prejudice in which native Germans view non-German immigrants to be inferior based on characteristics such as culture, religion, and ethnicity. In both East and West Germany, as well as in united Germany, Ausländerfeindlichkeit has led to social and institutional discrimination and even violence against foreigners. Since the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent revelation that part of the attacks were planned by immigrants in the northern German city of Hamburg, the primary target of Ausländerfeindlichkeit in Germany has been the country's Muslim population, which is comprised primarily of Turkish immigrants and their German-born offspring. Though many countries around the world experience prejudice within their societies, this problem is of particular importance and interest in the German case because of the country's Nazi past.

German population data shows that only about 5% of the 7.4 million foreigners in Germany live in the eastern part of the country. Foreigners comprise less than 3% of the total population in eastern Germany. Turkish immigrants in particular are highly concentrated in the west and only 1% of the Turkish population lives in eastern Germany. Despite the smaller number of foreigners living in eastern Germany in comparison to western Germany, a majority of the public opinion surveys consulted show that eastern Germans have more negative attitudes towards foreigners than western Germans. Other survey data, on the other hand, finds no statistically significant difference between eastern and western German attitudes towards foreigners, making it unclear if eastern Germans really are more Ausländerfeindlich. The public opinion survey studies consulted also found that Ausländerfeindlich attitudes vary within the eastern and western regions themselves and that in several western German states, anti-foreigner sentiment is just as high as in the east, facts which are obscured when Ausländerfeindlichkeit is only looked at in terms of east and west. Survey data makes it clear that significant portions of both eastern and western German society hold negative attitudes towards foreigners.

In light of these findings, this thesis advocates a shift away from this east-west paradigm in the study of Ausländerfeindlichkeit in Germany. Instead, the issue must be dealt with on the national level, with the recognition that the potentially higher levels of xenophobia in the east do not absolve western Germans of a need to deal with prejudice in their own region.

Bulgaria has repeatedly been ranked as 1 of the most pessimistic and unhappy nations in the world in surveys conducted over the last 15 years. The transition to a democratic form of government and a free market economy that began in 1989 has been difficult, even traumatic. Young urban adults who have grown up during this period of uncertainty were the focus of this study. Because of Bulgaria's extremely low birth rate and high rate of emigration, this generation is small in demographic terms, but their contribution to the country's future is critical.

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore and describe the sources of hope that enable these young Bulgarians to survive and cope. Data were gathered through focus group discussions that involved the viewing of a contemporary Bulgarian film. 3 major themes emerged from the focus group data: power, the nature goodness, and the act of believing (as opposed to belief in a supernatural or religious object). Analysis of these themes and an extensive review of available literature, including many local Bulgarian-language sources, led to the development of a theory of disempowerment as the best explanation of participants' perception their environment, themselves, and how they choose to cope. Participants' primary coping strategy is withdrawal. Because they are convinced that their environment is hostile and unjust and that they do not possess sufficient power to protect themselves, their primary source of hope is to avoid further loss through maintaining a limited number of close personal relationships, avoiding civic involvement, and utilizing the act of believing as a form of rationalization. Participants show virtually no interest in or reliance on religious faith, belief in supernatural power, or existential meaning as sources of hope for their lives.

Though the theory of disempowerment is helpful in describing and understanding participants' lives, the sources of hope identified are ineffectual. This study suggests potential paths of application for churches and Christian organizations and recommends further research concerning the form that the search for existential meaning may take in the Bulgarian context.

This study was an exploration of factors that impact the perceived quality of life among Russian-speaking immigrants in the United States. Specifically, the study was designed to investigate what type of relationship (if any) exists (direction and strength) between one’s desire to immigrate, sense of having a choice, the accuracy of preimmigration expectations, and quality of life after immigration. This researcher sought to understand whether desire and choice to immigrate and accuracy of one’s expectations about immigration as measured by a survey can significantly predict changes in quality of life as measured by Q-LES-Q-18 (in general and in its facets). This research question was examined using a series of multiple regressions. Post hoc studies included an examination of the relationship between quality of life as measured by participant responses to the Q-LES-Q-18 and subjective happiness, as measured by modified SHS. Posthoc analyses further explored relationships between demographic factors, income, language fluency, relationship status, and other variables with quality of life after immigration. Finally, open-ended questions were used to provide pertinent narrative to help explain the conclusions gathered from quantitative data. The perceived accuracy of expectations about immigration was found to be a major predictor of quality of life after immigration. It had unique, significant contributions to the prediction of physical heath, subjective feelings, leisure time, and general activities aspects of quality of life. Quality of life in all of its aspects was highly connected to ability to use the language (speak, understand, and communicate) of the dominant culture. Income strongly and positively correlated with participants’ subjective feelings, general activity, and life satisfaction.

This dissertation addresses questions related to craft production, social identity, and interaction through a multifaceted analysis of ceramic production and use during the Majiayao (3200-2000BC) and Qijia (2300-1500BC) periods in the Tao River Valley of northwestern China's Gansu Province. Situated between the Gobi Desert to the north and the foothills of the Tibetan Plateau to the south, for millennia this area acted as a key conduit for interaction between groups in central China and the Eurasian steppe. Majiayao and Qijia communities played a vital role in adopting, adapting, and retransmitting new domesticates, technologies, and ideas in both directions, helping shape the course of both Chinese and steppe civilization.

Despite these contributions to the development and spread of Chinese civilization, however, this region of northwest China is often pigeonholed into the trope of cultural devolution, with climatic shifts forcing a change from sophisticated Majiayao farmers to the small-scale, possibly pastoral societies of the Qijia. This conclusion is based almost entirely on shifts in pottery form and decoration, with the large, elaborately painted urns of the Majiayao period being replaced by the smaller, mostly undecorated pottery that defines the Qijia period. This dissertation challenges these conclusions by investigating the relationship between craft production, consumer and producer identity, and social interaction in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of the continuities and changes occurring between the two periods.

Taking a communities of practice based approach to ceramic production, this research focuses first on identifying potential groups of producers through assessment of paste recipes and forming techniques. In order to identify these groups, sherds from four Majiayao and Qijia habitation and mortuary contexts were sampled and analyzed using petrographic analysis. This technique provides information not only on the mineralogical makeup of a vessel, but also can provide insight into specific paste recipes and production techniques. This study revealed striking differences between vessels from mortuary and habitation contexts during the Majiayao period, pointing to the potential use of mortuary rituals for the negotiation and construction of relationships with other communities. It also demonstrated surprising continuity in production knowledge and techniques between the two periods, showing that changes in pottery form and decoration are not necessarily accurate reflections of underlying shifts in social identity.

In addition to petrographic analysis, whole vessels from mortuary contexts were also examined in order to assess how they were produced and used. Use-wear analysis was employed in order to understand the use histories of individual vessels, revealing that the majority of pots placed in graves during both periods were well used before interment. Standardization analysis was also carried out in order to explore potential production differences between various vessel types. It was demonstrated that while production does appear to vary between vessel types, there is impressive continuity in degree of vessel uniformity between the Majiayao and Qijia periods.

Combining the results of these three techniques, this research is able to address not only the communities of practice who were making these vessels, but also the potential roles they played in building and mediating relationships between groups. Specifically, for the northern Tao River Valley, it appears that despite significant shifts in pottery form, mortuary rituals, and the relationships that were mediated by these items and events, underlying communities of practice persisted over the course of more than 600 years.

Through comparative case studies of Slovakia and Hungary, I explore the competitive relationship between governing parties and radical right parties in post European Union accession parliaments. This research highlights the roles of ethno-nationalism and populism and employs Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarian minority, as manifested through the 2009 Slovak language law and the 2010 Hungarian citizenship law, as a focal point of competition between party groups. I argue that this competition reveals a more influential role than typically attributed to radical right parties. The first half of the article tests these cases against Meguid’s (2008) position, salience, and ownership theory of competition between unequals. The second half of the article analyzes this competition and points to electoral strategies, coalition and opposition policy payoffs, governing party reputations, and each country’s legal landscape as areas affected by the radical right’s presence.

Keywords: Radical right; Hungarian minority; language; citizenship; accommodation, issue ownership, issue salience; competition.

This thesis explores the distinct two-part polyphonic patterning in Lithuanian Sutartines to reveal how singers shape and/or experience their songs as musical weaves. The findings are based on original fieldwork as well as old ethnographic sources, which are (re)examined and interpreted through the lens of metaphor as a methodology.

There are long-standing debates regarding the history and identity of Ottoman communities that settled in Southeast Europe during the Ottoman period. As with any political expansion, individuals from Anatolia, the capital region of the empire, were likely to have migrated to newly acquired areas as soldiers, administrators, and political leaders. A mass migration of people is, however, not the only process that may have defined the Ottoman communities in Southeast Europe, as historic documents also record the conversion of Europeans to Islam for a variety of reasons. A consensus on whether migration or conversion practices more significantly impacted the biological makeup of Ottoman Europe has not been reached.

Thus far, the nature and impact of the Ottoman past in Europe have been predominately studied from the evidence and viewpoint of written history. Anthropological methods and theory have the potential to shed light on the population dynamics of this key period however. This dissertation employed advancements from both archaeology and biological anthropology to conduct a regional bioarchaeological analysis of the European Ottoman period, seeking a better understanding of identity in this historic context.

Two forms of analyses allowed for in-depth inquiry into biological aspects of identity in Ottoman Europe. First, the assessment of biological affinities from four European Ottoman period groups was done using biological distance analyses of craniometric and cranial non-metric morphological variation. These communities, today located in Hungary, Romania, and Croatia, were compared not only to each other, but also to other European and Anatolian populations. The European and Anatolian comparative populations were represented by four skeletal series from Hungary, Austria, Croatia, and Anatolia. The second method, utilized for one of the Ottoman period populations (from Romania), analyzed strontium isotopes from human and faunal dental enamel. Together, these methods provided a dynamic approach for highlighting markers of biological identity and affinity from human skeletal remains.

The use of biological distance and strontium isotope analyses highlighted a number of interesting patterns in the European Ottoman communities. The Ottoman populations appear diverse in terms of constituting a mix of peoples from different biological backgrounds. This is evident both within a single Ottoman community, as well as between communities located in different parts of the Ottoman territory. Evidence of this diversity was clear between males and females in different Ottoman period populations. Larger than expected between-sex biological differences within the Ottoman communities suggest distinct population histories for males and females.

The diversity found within and between the four Ottoman period populations analyzed in this research can be used to better understand different social and political processes influencing the demography of Ottoman Europe. With migration and conversion frequently cited as the two main processes contributing to population change in the region, this analysis allowed for the consideration of how unique trajectories of both impacted different individuals and different groups of people in these societies. The biological data highlighted in this study disagree with many simplistic historical conclusions that cite either migration or conversion as the singular process behind the creation of Ottoman communities and the European Ottoman identity.

Despite historic evidence that immigration from Anatolia and the conversion of Europeans to Islam impacted the demography of European Ottomans, these communities are at times treated as biologically homogeneous ethnic groups. The Ottoman-established Muslim populations in Southeast Europe are not only treated as a distinct group historically, the division between Muslims or ‘Turks’ and Europeans has been maintained in some modern communities as well. With Islamic relations in some regions of contemporary Europe continuing to deteriorate, long-held notions that European Muslims are the ‘other’, trespassers on Christian lands, are unlikely to be assuaged. The creation of the European Muslim identity descending from the Ottoman period includes a complex history that is still not fully understood. Many modern identities are created from a complex amalgamation of biological and cultural processes, both historical and modern in origin, committing diverse peoples into uniform categories. The bioarchaeology of this dynamic period provided new data on groups of people that influenced both the past and present in Southeast Europe.