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This article discusses the relations between the Lithuanian citizens of Kaunas and the Russians newcomers, who came to the city after the war. The research is based on a specific archival source – letters to the government – that has so far been little used in our historiography. In letters/complaints addressed to the leaders of the Soviet Union and Soviet Lithuania, the newcomers (Moscow-deployed party figures and demobilized soldiers) often accused Lithuanians – managers, superiors and local party bosses – of bourgeois nationalism. After discussing more typical complaints, the article draws several conclusions: first, tensions in the party apparatus between Lithuanians and newcomers were stimulated by the desire of newcomers to establish themselves in the party nomenclature by removing an undesired Lithuanian competitors. The accusations of nationalism were to help compromise party members of the titular nation. Second, accusations of nationalism were fueled by the different perceptions of Soviet nationality policy. The policy emphasized the need to nominate politically credible cadres “of local nationality”. For the newcomers, the policy of promoting “of national cadres” was not in line with the publicly declared principle of “friendship of the peoples” and of “special role of Russian people in building socialist society”. Without understanding the peculiarities of national policy in Soviet Lithuania, the newcomers often motivated the practice of “promoting national cadres” with Lithuanian bourgeois nationalism. Third, despite the “proletarian internationalism” and political-ideological commonalities, there were significant cultural differences between the newcomers-party members and Lithuanians. Lithuanian managers, superiors and local party bosses considered themselves the hosts of the city, and the newcomers as outlanders. For these the “order” (dominant ethnoculture) that existed in Kaunas not only seemed different from the one that existed back in Soviet Russia, but also alien. It is no coincidence that a large number of newcomers felt that the city “lacked” Soviet power and that it “flourished with nationalism”.
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U.S. President Donald Trump paid his first state visit to China in November 2017. Despite the two countries’ rugged relations, political elites from both sides had to reach expedient political congeniality for this high-stake diplomatic event. The state visit represented the best-case scenario in which the two adversarial countries could mutually conduct mediated public diplomacy. This article critically examines and compares Chinese and U.S. TV news discourse on the state visit in the supra-textual, verbal-textual, and visual modes. Conventional research suggests that external-relational factors, such as power hierarchy, cultural and political differences between countries affect mediated public diplomacy most. However, this article finds that China and the U.S.’ domestic political-economic and societal-intuitional logics behind news production have a more definitive influence on the actualization of mediated public diplomacy. These distinct domestic logics defy the governments’ foreign policy and lead to asymmetrical and futile public diplomacy results even in the best-case scenario.
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The re-pluralization of Eastern Europe has radically transformed the conditions in which religious organizations functioned. It has changed the relationship of church and state, and altered the balance of forces in these countries. As a result, the question of religion in this region assumes new dimensions and must be re-examined from a new perspective. The starting point for this is the self-evident fact that the political changes in Eastern Europe have opened up significant new opportunities for all of the churches, and the less evident-but I would argue, clearly documentable-fact that it is the Roman Catholic church that stands to gain the most from these changes. [...]
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Which different kinds of precepts of economic liberalism are there? First and foremost there is, of course, the brand of economic liberalism propounded by Adam Smith. In recent years, the newly evolving countries of "Eastern" Europe have learned that Adam Smith was entirely correct when he said: "The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which . . . would no-where be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself tit to exercise it.”
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For over a century and a quarter no independent Polish state figured on the political map of Europe. The transient existence of a French protected Duchy of Warsaw, which comprised some Polish lands, or of its diminished successor the Russian-ruled Kingdom of Poland did not negate this fact. Hence, when the possibility arose of the reemergence of a Polish state during the First World War (and its actual formation later), the question of what was Poland was neither rhetorical nor academic. [...]
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In the wake of the geo-political changes wrought by World War I, Poles and Czechs both embarked upon independent statehood in late 1918. On the one hand, independence appeared to provide a readymade environment in which to promote the cause of national unity. Externally, the two countries contemplated uncertain border settlements. For the Poles, the prospect of major conflict with Germany and Russia loomed large, while the Czechs viewed Germany and Austria with suspicion. Internally, the heady atmosphere engendered by independence created the basis for a patriotic political consensus. On the other hand, 1918 witnessed the eclipse of the pre-war order and an accompanying rise in social radicalism. [...]
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Any definition of the economic and political transitions occurring in Hungary today must begin with an analysis of the earlier structures that are now being dissolved. For a long time the system had no longer been Stalinist, that is, based on a totalitarian ideology which systematically used terror in the exercise of autocratic control over the everyday personal and professional lives of the people. After the 1956 uprising the system could not continue without change. [...]
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What follows was originally written for a Hungarian readership. I was invited to talk about my proposals for an economic policy for the next few years to be considered by the new parliament and government to be formed after the first free elections in the spring of 1990 . My lecture, presented on August 25, 1989, was attended by economic experts of several opposition parties and also by a few officials and managers of state-owned firms working with the present government. Out of the notes for that talk grew the present article. [...]
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To the Editor: Daniel Chirot, in his article on "Ideology, Reality, and Competing Models of Development in Eastern Europe between the Two World Wars," summarizes somewhat inaccurately the views of several important Hungarian social theorists, in particular those of Istvan Bibo, but also Ferenc Erdei and Liszlo Nemeth, and he also seems to have misunderstood my evaluation of their scholarly contributions to my book Socialist Entrepreneurs. [...]
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Research of the Ancient mining, throughout the Roman Empire, indicates that the evolutionary development of local, metallurgical, and mining plants is directly related to changes of the imperial administration. During the second century, the mines belonged to the state that leased them to a private mine lessee, conductor. As the same conductor appears in the northwestern areas of Bosnia and Mursa, Noricum, as a leaseholder of Pannonian iron mines, we can assume that this mining area was the administrative property of the province of Pannonia. There are fifteen epigraphic monuments from the third century, which provide a basis for understanding the administrative-legal arrangement of the mining district of north-west Bosnia. Almost all monuments have been erected in honor of Oriental deities, with the exception of two monuments referred to Sedatus, a Pannonian deity. The most represented deity is Terra Mater, whose dedications make half of the total number of these epigraphic sources. Terra Mater, or Mother Earth,basically is not a mining deity, but in this context, its interpretation as such is not a mistake. The aforementioned monuments have been erected by an administrative-legal apparatus operating in this district, in the form of a fiduciary (procurator Augusti), a bailiff (vilicus), or an association of collegium and corpus. Although the administrative apparatus was much more layered and had a functional hierarchical system, these are the only titles and functions that occur in the Northwestern Mining District, within their variations. The strength of administrative power, in the said territory, was best manifested in the third century, but there is numismatic evidence for the mining process in the first century.
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The Roman Catholic Church in contemporary Poland is a formidable institution. It is regarded by most as something monolithic, almost a phenomenon of nature-like Mount Everest. On the contrary, it seems to me that this religious organization is more akin to Mount Rushmore: solid and imposing-but carefully crafted from the materials at hand. The Church has not only survived Stalinism in Poland but has become a major social and political force facing the Leninist regime. Was it inevitable that the Catholic Church would assume this role in postwar Poland? [...]
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What was Yalta: Is it possible to identify a phenomenon in the past or present world of political affairs which deserves the appellation "Yalta system?" In a literal sense, "Yalta" was the February 4- 11, 1945 meeting of the "Big Three," Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, which rook place in the Crimea in a holiday resort near Yalta. This meeting had been preceded by a 1943 conference in Teheran and was soon to be followed by the third, and last summit of the War Alliance in Potsdam, in August 1945. [...]
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In the aftermath of the latest and most telling of the Polish government's amnesties, attention became actively focused upon the search for a political formula, one which would allow the regime and the "opposition" to move closer together and yet not seriously compromise their respective principles. It is now clear that the regime of General Jaruzelski cannot count on playing the amnesty card to such effect again, while other mobilizational symbols such as elections, declarations, or new institutions of reconciliation have either been devalued or not even instituted. The Social Consultative Council attached to the Chairman of the Council of State represents the farthest point to date traveled by the regime along the dimension of political inclusion. [...]
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Existing explanations of the Soviet Union's international relations with other Leninist regimes and the West are inadequate. They can be grouped into two categories: "monotheist" and "polytheist." "Monotheist" arguments rest on the claim that the Soviet Union's political character essentially differs from and opposes the West's. In this view the West is not at war with Soviet conduct "but with its existence; convinced that its existence and its hostility (are) the same." Such a view allows for variations in Soviet orientation while asserting essential continuity of Soviet organization and behavior. [...]
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A felicitous style of writing and fortuitous timing in the publication of a comprehensive and up-to-date history of Poland, together with a lack of a comparable work in English, have won for Norman Davies the status of one of the leading experts on Polish history in the West. Published just when journalists were casting around for background material about Poland and when the western public's interest in that country had reached its highest level ever, Davies's two-volume God's Playground: A History of Poland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981; New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) represents the first extensive history of Poland in English written by a single author. Capitalizing on this success, Davies then published a more popular account, Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). [...]
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The earliest episode of Soviet imperial expansion into Europe took place during the first two years of the Second World War. It was only then that the stabilized Soviet state, almost two decades after the revolution and the ensuing civil war had ended, in the aftermath of collectivization and the Great Purges, reached abroad for new territory. In 1939 and 1940 the Western Ukraine, Western Belorussia, the Baltic states, and Bessarabia were incorporated into the Soviet Union. They were absorbed into the Soviet state through a complex process where military occupation, police repression, induced civil war, and citizens' participation were mixed together. Many of the future leaders of People's Poland were apprenticed during this period. [...]
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Over a quarter century ago Melvin Croan asked, "Is Mexico the Future of Eastern Europe? " In a judicious and sober analysis he suggested that a possible trend in Eastern Europe was a movement toward the oneparty pluralism that the Mexican system then represented. Croan was skeptical about this possibility and even thought that "perhaps the question... should be recast to read, 'Is Mexico the future of Mexico?' " His skepticism was justified for neither has Mexico achieved stability as a one-party pluralist state nor has Eastern Europe followed the model Croan described. In fact, the only way that Eastern Europe, and Poland in particular, have emulated Mexico is that both have incurred huge foreign debts and have had to lower standards of living. Mexico has heralded the future of Poland, but not in the way envisioned. [...]
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The present paper intends to examine the historiographic reconstruction of the battle fought near the Frigidus river, fought by the armies of Theodosius and Eugene, on the basis of contemporary Christian literary testimonies. In particular, the article will focus on a narrative detail, such as that of the appearance of the strong wind on the second day of the war conflict, which has a central role in Christian sources: in fact, it has been interpreted as a prodigious and providential event that overturned the outcome of the battle in favor of Theodosius. Therefore, the research will highlight the descriptive variants regarding both the temporal location and the action of the wind during the battle: in this way, it will be shown how the topos of the providential wind was built and consolidated in the literary tradition, assuming the narrative function of the decisive event of the Theodosian victory. Furthermore, the present paper aims to provide a careful and precise interpretation of the cultural and political significance of this literary topos, relating it to the Theodosian propaganda of the end of the fourth century. In fact, some narrative details of contemporary Christian texts will be analyzed: they will turn out to be echoes of precise political and propaganda motifs of the late Theodosian age. Based on these similarities, the research aims to highlight how Theodosian propaganda flows into the works of Christian intellectuals, in a sort of ideological osmosis that strengthens the binomial between the State and the Catholic religion.
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Rams examines journalistic publications from 1968 until the mid-1970s that respond to the sexual revolution in the West, broadly understood. He proposes that their main goal was to mitigate the influence and revolutionary potential of countercultural movements on young Poles. It was also an attempt to cope with the effects of the transformations that had taken place in Poland in October 1956, which culminated in the events of March 1968.
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