How do you make abstract historical interpretations authentic? This question troubled communist party leaders and propaganda historians in Hungary following the restoration of dictatorship after 1956. Accordingly, this book investigates the crooked history of the retrospective state revisions of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic between the years of its 30th and 40th anniversary, 1949 and 1959.

In recent decades the study of memory has become central to the historical discipline as a powerful conceptual tool to assess both the political-ideological implications of social...

Iron Lazar is the first English-language biography of Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalinist Russia s leading deputies. With its focus on the political and personal relations of the Stalin group, this groundbreaking text offers a previously inaccessible insight into Kaganovich s role in shaping policy during the Stalinist era.

The study begins by examining Kaganovich s early political career and his ascent to power a feat achieved via a distinguished role in the Civil War, which led to his elevation into the party Secretariat in Moscow. By 1930 he, Stalin and Molotov effectively...

'Russian Language Studies in North America: New Perspectives from Theoretical and Applied Linguistics' offers a unique collection of research papers representing current directions in Russian language studies in Canada and the United States. Traditionally, Slavic and Russian studies in these countries have centered around literature, history, politics and culture. This volume reflects recent changes in Russian studies by focusing on language structure, language use and teaching methodology. The volume brings together several generations of scholars, from young promising researchers to...

Overthrowing communism in 1989 and joining the European Union in 2004, the Polish people hold loyalties to region, country and now continent even as the definition of what it means to be European remains unclear. This book uses the life-story narratives of rural and urban southern Poles to reveal how being European is considered a fundamental component of being Polish while participants are simultaneously becoming European .

Close attention to the individual lives of Poles allows the author to identify cultural patterns and grasp the impact of the EU on its member states, paying...

Bakhtin and his Others aims to develop an understanding of Mikhail Bakhtin s ideas through a contextual approach, particularly with a focus on Bakhtin studies from the 1990s onward. The volume offers fresh theoretical insights into Bakhtin s ideas on (inter)subjectivity and temporality including his concepts of chronotope and literary polyphony by reconsidering his ideas in relation to the sources he employs, and taking into account later research on similar topics. The case studies show how Bakhtin's ideas, when seen in light of this approach, can be constructively employed in...

This book explores the multiple effects of globalization on urban and rural communities, providing anthropological case studies from postsocialist Bulgaria. As globalization has been studied largely in urban contexts, the aim of this volume is to shift attention to the under-examined countryside and analyse how transnational links are transforming relations between cities, towns and villages in Bulgaria.

Since the opening of borders after the end of socialism (1989) and Bulgaria s EU accession (2007), rural communities have been drawn into new transnational connections and global...

Petr F. Iakubovich was born in Novgorod Province to a noble family in 1860, during a period of upheaval in Russia called the Great Reforms. In 1884, he was arrested and convicted as a member of the terrorist organization the People's Will. Iakubovich spent five years at a Siberian penal labor prison, followed by several more as a forced settler in Tobolsk Province. He began writing about his experiences while still in prison. The book he eventually produced is a quasi-fictionalized memoir loosely modeled on Dostoyevsky's "Notes from a Dead House."

Iakubovich represents himself...

How do you make abstract historical interpretations authentic? This question troubled communist party leaders and propaganda historians in Hungary following the restoration of dictatorship after 1956. Accordingly, this book investigates the crooked history of the retrospective state revisions of the First Hungarian Soviet Republic between the years of its 30th and 40th anniversary, 1949 and 1959.

In recent decades the study of memory has become central to the historical discipline as a powerful conceptual tool to assess both the political-ideological implications of social...

How much, and under what conditions, can the European Union affect democratization and democratic consolidation in prospective member states? What mechanisms does the EU employ to influence reforms in countries emerging from authoritarian rule? Focusing on Albania and Macedonia, two postcommunist countries with a legacy of internal conflict, Conditioning Democratization analyzes the relationship between EU accession conditionality and institutional reforms. It focuses on four sectors of reform that are often overlooked in other studies: constitutions, asylum, local decentralization and the...