Drawing on a selection of papers presented to the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies held in Warsaw in August 1995, the book presents a broad cross-section of thinking about postcommunist developments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Specialists from the region and the West apply their unique insights to challenge some conventional views on the transition. The book is both diverse and focused, suggesting that the experience of democratisation is an open-ended process in which those involved learn both from their own experience and from comparative...

Early transition was characterized by debate over shock therapy and gradualism as alternative reform strategies. Other important debates concerned the nature of the former USSR. Was it ever Socialist and what were its laws of motion? What implications does the old system have for the course of post-communist reforms? These are among the key issues analysed in this book, through a mix of conceptual analysis and an interesting selection of country studies.

This book examines some of the important linguistic changes that have taken place in Eastern Europe since 1991. Most of the papers deal with Russia, which has undergone a particularly complex process of re-adjustment. Though it is early to draw definitive conclusions, the contributions provide a preliminary understanding of the new language situation of post-Soviet Russia. Of the remaining papers one compares Russian, Ukrainian, one examines Komi-Permiak, while one looks more generally at language and society.

This collection of essays looks at the impact on women of the political changes which have taken place in East-Central Europe since the 1930s. It is unusual in combining a strong contemporary focus with re-evaluations of what the socialist experience has meant for women. It brings together specialists from both East and the West to offer insights into women's lives and responses to change in countries which have a shared legacy of state socialism yet are as culturally diverse as Russia and Germany, Poland and Estonia.

The essays in this collection explore the social 'construction' of the Russian peasantry in the period between Emancipation and Collectivisation, and the impact of these constructions on Tsarist and Bolshevik agrarian policy. The international group of authors represent different trends in the historical, sociological and geographical investigations of the East European peasantry and draw both upon the insights of cultural studies and recently available archival materials to throw new light on the relationship between peasantry and other classes.

The fall of the Communist regime in the USSR and Russia's search for a democratic and prosperous market-based future is one of the most compelling episodes of the end of the twentieth century. A central part in this drama is being played by political elites. These essays, written by some of the leading scholars in the field, analyse various aspects of the role being played by elites and leaders in Russian politics. Among the issues dealt with are: the origins of the Russian elites, including the issue of continuity with the Soviet past; the relationship between political and economic elites;...

This volume provides a cross-national analysis of the changing identities of various national and ethnic groups, their new political influence in the emergent democracies and their efforts to revive suppressed cultures. It begins with a theoretical analysis of the concepts of national identity and ethnicity. It features case studies of contemporary Belarussian, Polish and Ukrainian national identities before turning to a study of Eastern Europe's hidden ethnic minorities, like the Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia, the Lemkos in Poland and the Gypsies in Bulgaria.

This book contains fresh approaches to the interaction between regime and society in twentieth-century Russia. It offers new answers to familiar questions: * How useful is 'totalitarianism' as a model to categorise authoritarian regimes? * What chances existed for tsarism to establish itself as a constitutional monarchy? * Were Trotsky and Lenin dictators in waiting? * How did the Bolsheviks make the Lenin cult? * What opposition did intellectuals offer in the Soviet regime? * What is the nature of contemporary Russian constitutionalism? It is required reading for historians, political...