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The fall of the Soviet system was hailed in the West as a triumph
of liberal and democratic ideals, but this euphoria was to be short
lived. The Rise of the Russian Democrats traces the pro-Western
democracy movement's development in Moscow and Leningrad from 1987
to 1991 and seeks to explain its eventual loss of direction,
inspiration and popularity. Studying the democratic revolution from
its grassroots, Judith Devlin focuses on how a civil society
emerged in Moscow and Leningrad through the development of
political clubs and associations. Their relation to the reform
politics of the party leadership is addressed in her authoritative
and insightful analysis. Arguing that the movement's origins
contributed to its ultimate decline, the author explains how the
intelligentsia's leadership of the popular democratic movement was
usurped by new politicians who emerged from the lower echelons of
the Soviet management system. It was these new politicians who were
able to play the key role in the transition to post-communism,
shaping the new institutions and focusing political activity and
debate. The Rise of the Russian Democrats attempts to characterise
the original inspiration, strengths and weaknesses of the
democratic movement in order to explain political culture after the
1991 coup. As an exploration of the reasons for the slow and
superficial nature of democratization in Russia, this book is of
practical, as well as academic, interest for students, researchers,
journalists and policymakers.
This volume of seventeen essays by members of the Department of
History at University College Dublin is dedicated to the memory of
their colleague Albert Lovett (1944-2000) who taught at UCD for
twenty-five years. Covering topics from 1066, Edward II, The
Lombard League, the Irish-Counter Reformation, Ireland and colonial
America, Irish-born elites in Canada and the U.S., and nature and
nationalism in modern Ireland, these essays provide lively reading
on subjects covering a wide range of time and place, reflecting
Lovett's own interests.
War of Words is a volume of essays on the role of propaganda, mass
media and culture in the development of the Cold War in Europe.
Exploring a dimension of the political and diplomatic rivalry of
interest to historians principally in the last decade, these essays
explore the cultural dimensions of the early Cold War. The powers
felt it necessary to explain and justify to Europeans the division
of the continent into two hostile blocs and to mobilise them behind
these reinvented European identities, by drawing on elements of
national tradition while at the same time invoking modernity. The
mass media and popular culture (whose penetration into parts of
Eastern and South Eastern Europe was still relatively recent) were
harnessed to the demands of propaganda. Even the built environment
was mobilised to this end. The antithetical character of the two
blocs was not in all respects as absolute as it seemed at the time.
Similar cultural and social trends influenced the politics of
culture on both sides of the Iron Curtain. This book examines some
of these similarities and parallels as well as the intentions and
articulation of official policy.
In the English language World War I has largely been analysed and
understood through the lens of the Western Front. This book
addresses this imbalance by examining the war in Eastern and
Central Europe. The historiography of the war in the West has
increasingly focused on the experience of ordinary soldiers and
civilians, the relationships between them and the impact of war at
the time and subsequently. This book takes up these themes and,
engaging with the approaches and conclusions of historians of the
Western front, examines wartime experiences and the memory of war
in the East. Analysing soldiers' letters and diaries to discover
the nature and impact of displacement and refugee status on memory,
this volume offers a basis for comparison between experiences in
these two areas. It also provides material for intra-regional
comparisons that are still missing from the current research. Was
the war in the East wholly 'other'? Were soldiers in this region as
alienated as those in the West? Did they see themselves as citizens
and was there continuity between their pre-war or civilian and
military identities? And if, in the Eastern context, these
identities were fundamentally challenged, was it the experience of
war itself or its consequences (in the shape of imprisonment and
displacement, and changing borders) that mattered most? How did
soldiers and citizens in this region experience and react to the
traumas and upheavals of war and with what consequences for the
post-war era? In seeking to answer these questions and others, this
volume significantly adds to our understanding of World War I as
experienced in Central and Eastern Europe.
In the English language, World War I has largely been analysed and
understood through the lens of the Western Front. This book
addresses this imbalance by examining the war in Central and
Eastern Europe. The historiography of the war in the West has
increasingly focused on the experience of ordinary soldiers and
civilians, the relationships between them and the impact of war at
the time and subsequently. This book takes up these themes and,
engaging with the approaches and conclusions of historians of the
Western Front, examines wartime experiences and the memory of war
in the East. Analysing soldiers’ letters and diaries to discover
the nature and impact of displacement and refugeedom on memory,
this volume offers a basis for comparison between experiences in
the two areas. It also provides material for intra-regional
comparisons that are still missing from the current research. Was
the war in the East wholly `other’? Were soldiers in this region
as alienated as those in the West? Did they see themselves as
citizens and was there continuity between their pre-war or civilian
and military identities? And if, in the Eastern context, these
identities were fundamentally challenged, was it the experience of
war itself or its consequences (in the shape of imprisonment and
displacement, and changing borders) that mattered most? How did
soldiers and citizens in this region experience and react to the
traumas and upheavals of war and with what consequences for the
postwar era? In seeking to answer these questions and others, this
volume significantly adds to our understanding of World War I as
experienced in Central and Eastern Europe.
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