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The Soviet projects concerning post-war organization of Europe relayed on the fundamental principle to ensure the security of Soviet Union. From the moment when they took the power (1917) till the end of the communist regime, the new leaders of Russia were subject of a double feeling of insecurity. First it was an internal insecurity feeling. This feeling arose because the bolsheviks knew that they did not have a large social base. That is why they perceived the people as an enemy against it was necessary to fight to maintain him under a strong control. And for that the bolsheviks organized a extremely large and powerful institution for surveillance and repression. The second constitutive part of this insecurity feeling was external insecurity. The bolsheviks considered their country a fortress under siege. The Soviet leaders were obsessed by the „capitalist encirclement” ant for that reason they considered that is necessesary to protect the USSR against it. Recently in the Soviet\Russian archives were finded three project devoted to the post-war organization of Europe. They were written by Ivan M. Maiski, Andrei A. Gromyko and Maxim M. Litvinov. Maiski’s Plan was the most extensive and it was written on January 11, 1944. His author, was a career diplomat and served as ambassador of Soviet Union in Great Britain. In autumn 1943, the Soviet leaders recalled him and in a shrt period of time Maiski became one of the Molotov’s deputies minister and president of the International Comission for War Reparations. His document contains a deep analysis of the international context after World War II and also the step which has to be done by Soviet Union to protect its security interests. The second plan belongs to Andrei A. Gromyko, who was the ambassador of the Soviet Union in the United States, begining from 1943. His document contains an analyse of the foreign relations and the factors, which could influence affect them. That is why the United States and its foreign policy toward Western Europe was very deeply analised. Finaly, the Litvinov’s Plan represent a report concerning the activity of the Council of Foreign Ministers. Litvinov paid attention to three problems: Soviet-British relations, Soviet-American relations and the creation of the sphere of influences.
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This article is reviewed book N.D Karpov devoted to the history military emigration Russian army of General Wrangel to Turkey in 1920.
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The Bank of Poland joint stock company was established in 1924 as the central bank of the Second Republic. It was planned to be set up shortly after Poland regained its independence, however, it turned out to be possible only a few years later, after the fiscal and monetary reform. It was not an easy task, only Władysław Grabski’s government managed to do it. A broad-based share subscription was made for the Bank’s shares, as this bank was supposed to operate in the form of an organizational and legal joint stock company. A new monetary unit was introduced, which was given the traditional name “zloty”. The Statute of the Bank of Poland indicated the main objectives of its activity and explicitly defined the structure and functions of the authorities of this bank of whom the key importance should be attributed to the Bank Board.
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The role of Roman Catholic Church in the realization of confessional politics of Polish power in Volyn, in years 1920–1930 is pictured in the article. It is shown that the Catholic Church became an important instrument in the propaganda of the idea of the Polish state system and culture on the Eastlands. It founds out the role of this confession in the realization of assimilatory influence on the local Orthodox population.
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State Gymnasiums in Bosnia and Herzegovina took an important place in the school system of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Through gymnasiums political, economic, cultural, national and other goals of the ruling political elites were realized. In the period from 1918 to 1929, the number of gymnasiums in Bosnia and Herzegovina increased from 7 to 17. The number of pupils climbed from 2,279 to 6,655, and the number of teachers from 174 to 264. Curricula goals were cleared from content that aligned with the interests of the Austro-Hungarian regime. The ruling elite spread the idea of “one nation with three names”, striving to create a unique political, economic, educational and cultural space. Significant changes have been made in the group of national subjects (history, geography, Serbian or Croatian language), with emphasis on the history and geography of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, and reading material containedSerbian, Croatian and Slovenian literature. The largest number of textbooks were written by authors from Croatia and Serbia, while only a small number were from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Textbooks used in gymnasiums in Bosnia and Herzegovina were printed mainly in Croatia and Serbia (Belgrade and Zagreb), 92 of the total of 106, and only 14 or 13.21% of them were printed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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The paper speaks about the opening of the Civil Trade School in Gradacac. Special attention has been paid to the search for archival material by means of which we have discovered the exact date of opening the school, since previously published publications gave different data. The paper also discusses teaching staff who worked at the School. In the end, we emphasized the importance that the school had in the economic, cultural and educational sense for the wider area of Gradacac and its inhabitants. The paper details constant long-standing efforts of the municipal authorities to open the school and its teaching staff and students. The Second World War was a special challenge for this school, which was due to war, poverty, frequent shifts of various “authorities” and lack of teaching staff. Due to these, the school was closed in 1943.
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This paper examines the transformation of medieval figures from state “heroes” during the interwar years into “villains” of the Communist state in Czechoslovakia (St Wenceslas and Jan Hus) and Hungary (St Stephen) through their national day commemorations. I argue that the negative treatment of these medieval heroes was not clear-cut and, especially in Hungary, they enjoyed a comeback of sorts during the second half of the Communist era. This article thus demonstrates, through official commemorative events, that the Communist regimes of Czechoslovakia and Hungary to some extent were ready to continue with national symbols and traditions that were firmly established in the previous era and had apparently been abolished by the Communist regimes themselves.
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This article examines terminological and theoretical issues concerning the writing of the history of the Civil War and its connection with the 1917 Revolution: its chronology, its political and military dimensions and its psychological aspect. Archival funds from RGASPI (Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History), RGANI (Russian State Archive of Contemporary history), the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Archive, the Gorky Archive at the Institute of World Literature and Art and the Manuscripts Department at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Russian History. The authors examine how a military historical approach to the writing of the history of the Civil War, developed during the summer of 1930, was replaced by a political approach, developed between 1931–1932. Moreover, it examines how the chronological dating of the outset of the conflict changed over time. If early on, the Civil War was considered to have begun long before 1917 and the revolution of that year was held to have two phases — February and October — this all changed with Stalin’s intervention in the book’s editing during the summer of 1935. Stalin’s intervention also broke all ties with earlier conceptions that connected these developments to the global place of the USSR and the country’s foreign policy.
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The article is a continuity of the previous research of Lithuanian areal toponymy. It investigates the motivation of composite helonyms from a single administrative unit – interwar Marijampolė County – recorded in the “Land Names” questionnaires. The research reflects the efforts to record the names of the small hydroobjects which are about to get extinct (or which have already fallen into oblivion) and to reveal their gnoseological potential based on other data from the interwar questionnaires which are also worthy of preservation. To achieve as reliable interpretation of the motivation of hydronyms as possible, the article refers to the data of the interwar questionnaires recording the factors of nomination and the outcomes of the communicative activity of linguistic community members which were useful in clarifying the actually represented content of hydronyms and pseudomotivation.
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Hungarian music historiography traditionally regards the dispute about „new Hungarian music” as a contest between conservative and progressive aesthetic views. However, the artistic problem of the Hungarian intelligentsia in the interwar period were more complex. They had tasks such as synchronizing modernism and nationalism, harmonising 19th century ideals and 20th century compositional ideas and redefining the criteria of the national musical-cultural canon. The musicologist Bence Szabolcsi created an influential theory on peasant music inspired symphonic style already in the 1920s. He supported Kodály in his articles and he had a conscious intention to establish a new school of Hungarian music. As a young man Szabolcsi created a future oriented golden age theory based on his belief that the classical era was the absolute peak of European music. He made a diff erence between artistic creation (as a reflection of divine creation) and consciuos composition, classicism and romanticism, culture and civilization, and he regarded the latter categories as the signs of perilous European decadence from which there is no other choice but a „new classicism”, that is a „new testament”. Young Szabolcsi thought „new Hungarian music” could be the new and only path leading back to God, to culture, to music.
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This article discusses the most recent publishing projects devoted to the history and intellectual accomplishments of the Polish cooperative movement before 1939. It illustrates the political dimension of the concept of cooperation, the need to deepen the research on the symbolic universe of the movement and the effect which defining the peripheral status of the Polish economy had on the development of the economic analyses of the Polish cooperators. The political philosophy of Polish cooperativism, created primarily by Edward Abramowski, in many respects exceeds the limitations characteristic for the classical modern ideologies of the political left-wing, thanks to which it inscribes in the process of ―inventing tradition‖ by the modern emancipation movements in Poland.
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The author analyses the reflection of the events of December 17, 1926, in Lithuania in the conversations of Soviet and Latvian diplomats and politicians. Soviet diplomats (charge d’affaires S. Borkusevich, consul general V. Shenshev) usually compiled a record of interviews for timely reports on the current political situation in Latvia and when the coup had occurred carried out the records of conversations with representatives of various Latvian political circles in connection with Lithuanian events. These materials were written in an atmosphere of extreme uncertainty and lack of reliable information, based even on gossips. Soviet diplomats, first, sought to find out whether the coup had been mounted under “foreign influence” (the possibility of Polish and German influence was discussed) and, secondly, to realize if the risk of a similar “far right” coup was real in Riga, especially when left cabinet had just come to power. The reports that were sent to Moscow (People’s Commissariat of International Affairs) demonstrate both the attitude of various representatives of the political spectrum of Latvia to the Lithuanian coup and the complex international situation. The events of December 17, 1926, in Lithuania influenced the formation of the Soviet policy in Latvia. During the negotiations conducted with the center-left government of Latvia on a trade agreement the Soviet side had also take into account interests of the right-wing opposition — representatives of the Peasants’ Union of Latvia. A trade agreement with Latvia was concluded on June 2, 1927, and the representatives of the Peasants’ Union gained certain benefits — thus, certain lessons from Lithuanian coup were drawn.
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In the late 1920s after the abandonment of the New Economic Policy and expansion of the forced collectivization relationships between the peasantry and the Party and State authorities sharply deteriorated. The collectivization was especially painful in the Don Cossack area. The article reveals the causes and forms of protest mood of the Don Cossacks as well as the activities of Cossack counterrevolutionary organizations in the late 1920s and 1930s. The principal causes of Cossacks’ opposition to the authorities were the forced collectivization and mass persecutions of the countryside population. In many cases Cossacks’ protests were accompanied by violence. But in the late 1920s, the Don Cossacks were not able to protest actively as they had been broken down by the Civil War. Besides the state “face to Cossacks” policy in the south of Russia reached its goals in the mid-1920s and in 1935–1936. A major part of the Don Cossacks grew loyal to the Soviet power and supported the authorities in the abandonment of the NEP and conducting collectivization. The reported formation of Cossack counterrevolutionary organizations on the Don in 1927–1937 turned out to be false in most cases. It is proved by the newly revealed historical documents. Law-enforcement organs kept on “cleaning out” those who could menace the state regime while the Cossacks could be easily used to “show” the mass character and widespread of counterrevolutionary plots from any kind of opposition.
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The article is timed to the 85th anniversary of the common tragedy of the peoples of the USSR — The famine of 1932–1933, as a result of the agrarian policy of the Stalinist leadership of the country. It is devoted to such an important aspect as the grain procurement campaigns in Ukraine in the early 1930s, which became the main cause of this tragedy. The main attention in the article is given to the analysis of the role of Kosior — the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and the republican leadership of the Ukrainian SSR in the implementation of grain procurement in Ukraine in 1931–1932. Its source base is made up of documents from the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation and other central archives, as well as published sources. In the article for the first time in the domestic historiography, the relationship between the republican leadership of Ukraine and the Center in the person of I.V. Stalin and his closest associates at the peak of the crisis of the grain procurement campaigns in the early 1930s in the Ukrainian SSR and the famine of 1932– 1933. As a result, it is concluded that in explaining the circumstances of the tragedy of 1932–1933, in Ukraine, it is necessary to take into account the subjective factor: the actions of the local republican leadership, primarily S.V. Kosior, during the grain procurement of 1931–1932. They exacerbated their negative consequences for the fate of the millions of inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine. This conclusion does not call into question the decisive role of Stalin’s leadership and Stalin personally in organizing the great tragedy of the peoples of the USSR in 1932–1933, both in Ukraine and in other regions of the country.
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The text examines connections between the development of modernizing cities in 1910s-1930s and the women’s issue. There are several examples of unique architectural concepts all over Europe in that time, including houses for women in Berlin, Kopenhagen and Prague. Especially Berlin could be regarded as a model modern city with women architects who took responsibility for new, feminist projects of houses for female population of different age and social background. Considering Poland, Cracow seems to be one of outstanding examples of a city where women’s initiative was strong enough to establish a foundation and to built two houses for female post workers. The Cracow leader of the group was Władysława Habicht who was strongly involved in both women’s and national issues. Thanks to her determination and hard work, women working at the local post-office could find a place of their own.
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It is difficult to list all exceptional women who lived in Żoliborz neighborhood between World Wars. For the above reason, I will not be bold enough to write a collective biography. However, it is worth underlining, that both women and the neighborhood equally benefited from such coexistence. Despite a left wing and social character of Warsaw Housing Association, its space and climate is obviously a masculine projection, however, it is legitimate to hypothesis, that it resulted in the preparation of favorable conditions for the development of urban, public and domestic activity of women living in the neighborhood. On the other hand, the committed architecture “tailored for human”, concern for conditions for women’s self-development, the shape of the neighborhood “tailored for children” and formation of new urban lifestyles, were all the contribution of women, whom I called the designers of life in Żoliborz. I do not refer here to a literary meaning of designers, as a term which brings associations towards architecture or design. Żoliborz in this respect, should be perceived in a larger scale as a social experiment, an educational and emancipative project, meant for, developed and fl exibly introduced to workers, women and children. These three groups were the subject of experiments conducted by the creators of a social neighborhood in order to test a new, urban culture, based on “a culture of coexistence”, and also new styles of living. If the neighborhood of Żoliborz is perceived as an educational and emancipative project, then we should raise two important aspects: education and projectivity. Therefore, while writing about the women of Żoliborz, who actively co-created new lifestyles and fought for their rights to the city, I will refer to them as designers. I also asked about educational dimension of the neighborhood in order to draw attention to the question stated by Jacques Rancière, about participation or emancipation. In this context it is necessary to analyse the role of women. Were they indeed the designers of the reality of Żoliborz or were they only a subject of masculine educational strategies? The question is legitimate, because, as pinpointed by Marta Leśniakowska, emancipative postulates of male founders of Warsaw Housing Association were merely a facade, which veiled a constant male domination.
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