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Abstracts
AB,
CDEF, GHIJ, KL,
MNO, PQR, ST,
UVWXYZ
Cara,
Olga
Casal Bertoa, Fernando
Chaisty, Paul
Chandler, Robert
Cheang, Sarah Ossipow
Chmielewska, Ella
Connolly, Richard
Danii, Olga
de Deugd, Nienke
Denisova, Liubo
Dimova, Gergana
Dobroaklonaskaya,
Tatiana
Dobson, Miriam
Drage, Charles L.
Emeliantseva,
Ekaterina
Eriksson, Svetlana
Eysmont, Polina
Ferguson, Iain
Fleming, Michael
Frear, Matthew
Fung, Kai-Yeung
|
Fitzwilliam
College, Cambridge, UK
27
– 29 March 2010
Abstracts
C-F
Cara, Olga
Linguistic Acculturation Strategies of Ethnic Russian Adolescents
in Latvia
This paper presents research findings exploring linguistic acculturation
strategies of ethnic Russian adolescents in Latvia: looking at the most
and least preferred strategy as well as interrelatedness between choice
of acculturation strategies and the Latvian language knowledge and perceived
discrimination. The research uses John Berry’s two-dimensional acculturation
model, based on four different acculturation strategies for ethnic minority
and immigrant adaptation in the host society: assimilation, integration,
separation and marginalisation. Data comes from a longitudinal study of
adolescents from schools with Russian as the language of instruction in
Riga. Same schools were invited to participate in the survey in 2000,
2007 and 2009.
Casal
Bertoa, Fernando
Institutionallizing Political Parties or Institutionalizing
Party Systems? Conceptual Development and Empirical Application to New
East Central European Demoracies
In addressing issues of democratic consolidation in “Third Wave” democracies,
many of the recent discussions confuse notions of party institutionalization
with those of party system institutionalization. The contention of my
paper is that the conceptual confusion of these two distinct processes
has undermined our understanding of institutionalization, which is considered
to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for the healthy functioning
of democracy. Furthermore, in order to contribute to theory building on
political parties and party systems more generally, it is necessary to
differentiate between the two. Following a conceptual re-examination of
the two phenomena above-cited, my paper first reviews the existing literature
on party and party system institutionalization, indicating limitations
and inconsistencies, before offering a new analytical model which, on
the one hand, focuses on the static parameters of the system (party institutionalization)
and, on the other, concentrates on the interactions the systemic constituent
parts (i.e., political parties) develop within the system as a whole (party
system institutionalization). Therefore, while the institutionalization
of political parties is understood as progress in two dimensions: roots
in society and level of organization; party system institutionalization
is considered to be the process by which the patterns of inter-party interaction
become routine, predictable and stable over time. The paper then considers
the relationship between party and party system institutionalization in
some of the newer democracies in East Central Europe. The analysis shows
that, although clearly related phenomena, the relationship between party
and party system institutionalization is far from being simple and deterministic:
in fact, the former should be considered a source, but not a symptom of
the latter.
Chaisty, Paul
Legislative Lobbying in the Federal Assembly, 1994-2007
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, legislative assemblies have provided
an important institutional base for particularistic economic interests
in Russian politics. Such economic interests are described as particularistic
because they articulate, via personal contacts with politicians, the exclusive
concerns of narrow constituencies or groups – business, bureaucratic and
regional - rather than the wants and desires of society as a whole. In
this paper, I examine the evidence of systematic linkages between economic
interests and the legislative behaviour of Duma deputies, and I consider
the factors that may account for the changing nature of this relationship
over time.
Chandler,
Robert
The Dilemmas of Representing the Shoah in Grossman’s ‘The
Hell of Treblinka'
Vasily Grossman’s ‘The Hell of Treblinka’, was published in November 1944;
English and French translations were published in 1945. Then the article
seems to have been forgotten – probably because of the prevalence of Cold
War thinking. Grossman’s negotiation with the impossibility of representing
the Holocaust deserves reappraisal. He does precisely what Irving Howe
says one should not do when writing about the Shoah; he meets the subject
‘full face’. Yet he knows how to write without simply inducing numbness.
His tone keeps shifting: horror gives way to lyricism, fury to pity, passion
to logic – even to a remarkable good sense. Sometimes Grossman writes
from the victims’ perspective, sometimes from that of the guards. A dilemma
that faces anyone writing about the Shoah is the question of ‘aestheticizing’
the death camps. If a writer succeeds in writing clearly, vividly and
powerfully, their work – no matter what the subject matter – will inevitably
take on a certain beauty. There is then a danger that the subject matter
will be transcended, left behind and forgotten. A second dilemma arises
from the sense that the only true witnesses are the dead. Grossman resolves
both dilemmas with delicacy. Passages of near-poetry are followed by passages
in what seems the most prosaic of all literary forms: the catalogue of
objects. These lists of the former belongings of former people – pots,
pans, cigarette-lighters, letters – bring us down to earth, to the earth
in which they are buried. They are the truest witnesses to the lives that
have been destroyed.
Cheang,
Sarah Ossipow
Blaise Pascal and Marina Tsvetaeva: An Uncanny Proximity
In this paper I will demonstrate that the complexity of Tsvetaeva’s writing
stems from the poet’s refusal of dogmatism that characterises her relentless
search of an always elusive truth, as clearly indicate her works such
as Bog (1922), Novogodnaiaia (1922) or Poema Vozdukha (1925). I argue
that Tsvetaeva’s quest of an unattainable truth is significantly informed
by the thought of the French thinker Blaise Pascal who argues in his Pensées
that, although one should strive to discover the ultimate truth no one
can unveil it. In other words, the epistemological stance of Tsvetaeva
and Pascal is strikingly similar. The analysis of Pascal’s influence on
Tsvetaeva is especially relevant, because it partly explains the poet’s
propensity to coin highly paradoxical formulae, her heterogeneous use
of literary genres and her frequent use of parallelisms, which are also
the hallmarks of Pascal’s writing. These observations enable me to demonstrate
that both authors resort to a literary style aimed at disconcerting the
readers in order to make them experience the instability of their beliefs.
Marsh,
Cynthia, Turbine, Vikki, Chmielewska,
Ella, Kosmala, Katarzyna, Kay, Rebecca, Stella, Francesca and Swain, Geoff
'Ideas that Never Meet': Navigating Interdisciplinary Knowledge
and Practice within Slavonic and East European Studies
Area studies have traditionally embodied a range of disciplinary and methodological
practices in order to explore the multiplicities of social, cultural and
historical phenomena characterising Slavonic and East European societies.
As such, they provide a potentially stimulating intellectual context within
which to consider the ways in which different knowledges and understandings
might be exchanged, combined and transformed in order to generate innovative
approaches to understanding the region more deeply. In recognition of
this, the roundtable aims to further debate around two main themes:
(i)
east/west ‘knowledge exchange’ with a specific focus on the interpretation/use/reworking
of particular western concepts in the ‘eastern’ context as well as reflections
on comparable east-west movements and the ways/means of facilitating/assessing
such exchanges.
(ii) the nature and character of knowledge exchange and dissemination
in the Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences with a view to facilitating
innovation in these areas.
Connolly,
Richard
The Economic Crisis and the Prospects for the Modernization
of the Russian Economy
The economic crisis has exposed the failings of the Russian economy: an
overdependence on natural resource exports; a poorly functioning institutional
environment; and an uncompetitive industrial sector have resulted in Russia
suffering more than most other emerging market economies during the economic
crisis. In this context, the need for the diversification and modernization
of the Russian economy has become even more apparent, not least to the
country’s ruling elite, who prior to the crisis had determined that the
state should play an important role in the modernization of the economy.
This paper assesses the prospects for the future diversification and modernization
of the Russian economy in the context of the ongoing economic crisis.
By employing a ‘growth diagnostics’ framework to identify the main obstacles
to Russia’s modernization, it examines: (a) the desirability of the state’s
chosen modernization strategy; and (b) the feasibility of the strategy
in light of the effects of the recession. After concluding that the modernization
strategy proposed by the Russian authorities is neither desirable nor
feasible, several alternative strategies towards development are proposed.
Danii,
Olga and Mascauteanu, Mariana
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)/Eastern Partnership
(EaP) and Moldova: ‘falling between two stools’?
Based on a nation-wide survey, focus-groups, elite interviews and school
essays conducted in Moldova during 2008-9, the paper investigates the
progress and difficulties in the development of the Moldova-EU relations,
through the ENP and EaP perspectives. The paper will proceed in four sections.
Section one provides a brief historical overview of the Moldova-EU relations,
also accounting for the recent turmoil related to the aftermath of the
parliamentary/presidential elections. Section two discusses particular
progress made by Moldova in the process of building relations with Europe
(following the ‘boundary-politics’ framework set in the first paper).
Third section examines existing difficulties and obstacles in facilitating
this cooperation, from the Moldovan perspective. In particular, the section
examines the role of geopolitics (the Russian factor, especially in handling
the ransdniestrian conflict) and culture (public and elite perceptions;
awareness; attitudes/values and expectations) in the Moldova-EU relations.
The paper concludes by discussing the future prospects for the development
of the Moldova-EU relations, and objectives that Moldova sees as essential
for making the ENP/EaP effective and appealing for the participating sides.
de Deugd,
Nienke
Relations Between the EU and Ukraine: A Case of Policy Transfer?
When taking stock of the way in which the countries from Eastern Europe
have dealt with the twin-challenges of transformation and integration,
it quickly becomes apparent that different countries have followed different
trajectories. Some countries have been successful in the introduction
of far-reaching changes and the pursuit of EU-membership, while other
countries are half-way in the implementation of reforms and have been
labelled as (potential) candidate member states. Still other countries
are only in the early stages of the reform process and have been consigned
to the European Neighbourhood Policy. The diverging pathways that the
former communist countries have taken in their quest for the proverbial
return to Europe can be analysed with reference to many different levels,
actors and dimensions. This paper contributes to the growing body of
literature on the aforementioned issues by paying attention to the process
of political transformation in Ukraine en the role that is played therein
by the EU. More specifically, this paper analyses the extent to which
a process of policy transfer (‘a process in which knowledge about policies, administrative
arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or
present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements,
institutions and ideas in another political setting’) has taken place
in the relations between the EU and Ukraine. In so doing, light is shed
on the political landscape of Ukraine and the workings of the ENP, as
well as on the (practical and theoretical) limits to external involvement
in internal affairs.
Denisova,
Liubov
The “Gulag” of the Collective Farm, or the Realities and Discrepancies
of Soviet Rural Life
For most of its history, the Soviet Union was a largely agricultural society.
Yet many of the changes, achievements, and social security benefits that
the Soviet system boasted, were not extended to rural residents in general
and collective farmers in particular. Rural residents had neither passports
nor social security nor even guaranteed monetary wages up until mid-1960s.
Moreover, much of their life was regimented according to various Codes
(of 1935, 1969, 1987) that seemed to specify even mundane details of collective
farmers’ lives. All Codes, though they were meant to be and were promoted
as “democratic,” offered no security for collective farm workers. These
codes granted collective farms a right to solve some of their problems
internally, and in practice, it implied that all decisions were made by
a collective farm director at his personal discretion. Such decisions,
unsurprisingly, often reflected director’s like and dislikes, needs and
wants. Collective farms were a center of rural community, yet they also
created a system of a virtual collective GULAG which no one could escape
from. In brief, my research, based on extensive archival work, exposes
a great discrepancy that existed between the proto-democratic principles
of the [agricultural] Codes and the reality of the enclosed communities
of collective farms which were in practice based on the intentional limitation
of farmers’ choices and rights.
Dimova,
Gergana
Who Guards the Guardians? Processes of Accountability in Russia
and Bulgaria
Modern democracies have invented many mechanisms to make sure that governments
stay in check while they are in power. In fact, this feature of executive
answerability has been one of the major differences that set apart the
communist from the post-communist regimes. Admittedly, these countries
have achieved accountability with various degrees of success. My paper
looks into how the institutions of government control in Bulgaria and
Russia have improved or deteriorated during the period from 1990 to 2005.
The study bestows a fresh and alternative look at the processes of democratization
from the perspective of accountability. The study is designed in the following
way: I selected instances of government corruption and incompetence that
have been reported in a mainstream media for a certain period, and counted
in how many of these instances the government has been sanctioned. A higher
number of instances in which the government has been accused and punished
indicate a higher level of government accountability. It is important
that I have selected two countries with a different institutional design,
as the latter is most likely to influence accountability. I find that
government accountability is greater in Bulgaria than in Russia and that
the Bulgarian government is responsible to more institutions that control
each other at the same time than the government of Russia. The Bulgarian
government is mainly administered by the Supreme Administrative Court
while the government in Russia is controlled by the president. This is
a surprising finding because Bulgaria is a parliamentary country, and
parliament turns out to be a weak institution of control of the executive
branch. The findings suggest that the government in Russia is exclusively
controlled by only one body- the president. What is alarming is that presidential
control is administered at the expense of the public, the courts and the
legislature. I call this “monopoly of accountability.” These findings
confirm the initial hypothesis that the institutional design- presidential
or parliamentary- has an important effect on how governments of post-communist
countries are held accountable.
Dobroaklonaskaya,
Tatiana
Russians in the UK: Critical Analysis of Media Representations
The paper will focus on how Russia and the Russians have been represented
by the British media for the past ten years. The image of Russia and the
Russians will be critically assessed along the following lines
1) Topics and issues
that have been most often covered by the British media in connection
with Russia since 2000. The author plans to analyse such topics as Russian
politics, business, social issues and culture. Special attention will
be given to the so called “buzz-topics”, or themes that attracted international
media attention for some time, for example, presidential elections,
Putin’s speech in Munich in February 2008, Southern Ossetia war 08.08.08
etc.
2) Media images of top level Russian politicians. Here the speaker will
concentrate on how the British media portray two Russian leaders – Medvedev
and Putin with special emphasis on changes in media representations.
3) Russians in the UK: regularly covered topics and media profiles of
most prominent persons. This part will dwell on how Russians living
in the UK are represented. The author will tackle media coverage of
such issues as education Russian children in the UK, property acquisition
and Russian immigrants.
The presenter will
mostly use materials from the British quality press, including some items
specifically devoted to Russia, like TV programme of Channel 4 “Russians
are coming”.
Dobson,
Miriam
‘Religious Fiends’: Baptists, Pentecostalists and Accusations
of Ritual Murder in the 1950s and 60s
In the 1950s and 1960s, as the Soviet government launched its anti-religious
campaigns with renewed vigour, the press was full of bloody accounts of
the hideous crimes committed by believers. Several newspaper articles
described the killing of young children by so-called ‘sectarians’, particularly
Baptists and Pentecostalists. It was suggested that ritual murder was
part of the religious practice of these groups. This paper explores the
published propaganda material, and, using archival material, the stories
behind the cases.
Drage,
Charles L.
Some features of 20th-century politically related Russian slang
This paper identifies and illustrates some features of 20th-century Russian
slang chiefly from the Soviet period. The examples are taken from collections
of Russian slang published in the last twenty years. Most of them belong
to the Soviet period, but a few come from the post-communist period since
1991.
1. The metaphorical
use of common nouns.
2. The metaphorical
use of the names of Soviet leaders or persons prominent in Soviet society.
(a) with positive
meanings.
(b) with negative meanings.
3. The use of the
names of prominent figures in similes.
4. Reversing the
evaluative meanings of political terms and extending them to non-political
contexts.
(a) converting
positive terms into negative ones.
(b) converting negative terms into positive ones.
5. Distortions of
place-names.
6. Objects and places
named after Soviet personages or events in Soviet history.
7. Formalized responses
to conventional Soviet forms of address.
8. Ironic use of
communist forms of asseveration.
9. References to
the industrialization of agriculture and the governmental promotion
of maize culture.
10. Humorous expansions
of official acronyms.
Emeliantseva,
Ekaterina
Human Heroes or Bio-robots? The Soviet Cult of Technology,
Masculinity Concepts, and Emotions on the Soviet Nuclear Submarines in
the 1960-90s
The paper will explore gendered emotionality in the late Soviet Union,
focusing on the articulations of masculinity on the nuclear submarine.
In the symbolic order of Soviet masculinity concepts, military service
on submarines assumes a prominent part: Romanticism and heroism of everyday
life, the extreme exposure to advanced technology, and conquest of new
horizons and depths of the planet – those were the central aspects of
Soviet patriotic militarized masculinity, assuring the submariners a place
of honour in Soviet society. The questions I address in this paper focus
on the relationship between rapid technological development and the life-worlds
of individual members of the crew: Did the soaring preoccupation with
advanced technology as an everyday experience create a special “emotional
regime” (W. Reddy) on the submarines? And what impact did it have on the
heroic paradigm of Soviet masculinity concepts? Analyzing the reminiscences
and literary pieces (prose and poetry) composed by submarine officers
I will show continuities and disruptions of patriotic masculinity between
the generations of the “sixtiers” and those who started their service
in the 1970s.
Eriksson,
Svetlana
The Russian Language and Identity: Narratives of Adolescents
from Russian-speaking Families in Ireland
How important is the Russian language (RL) for the adolescents from Russian-speaking
(RS) families in Ireland? Is it possible to say that it is a core value
for them as far as their ethnic identity is concerned?
I study intergeneration transmission practices in RS families from Latvia
(10 families) and Russia (10 families) in Ireland and how these practices
differ from those in control families in Ireland, Russia and Latvia (10
families in each group).
In this paper I focus mainly on language retention practices, their variables
and effect on adolescents’ attitudes towards languages.
What factors can affect language situation in a particular family? De
Houwer argues that parents’ attitude towards bilingualism in general and
to single languages in particular very often determines the language behaviour/situation
in the family as well as children’s language acquisition/retention (de
Houwer 1999). Borland suggests that there are motivating factors: parents’
determination to use their heritage language for communication at home,
familial ties with homeland, informal learning of heritage language at
home in addition to formal (Borland 2006).
In my semi-structured interviews with families from my target and control
groups I analyze
• Relationship between
attitudes to the languages of one’s repertoire and one’s ethnic identities
• Relationship between parents and their children’s attitudes towards
the RL
• Relationship between parental goals, language retention methods and
outcomes.
Eysmont,
Polina
Acquisition of Verb Argument Structure in Russian: An Experimental
Study
The paper deals with the problem of verb argument acquisition and their
realization in speech of children and adults, which is one of the most
discussed, but still vague problems in Russian grammar (Apresjan 1995,
Iordanskaja, Mel’cuk 2007). The conclusions are based on the data of two
similar experiments – one with adults as the subjects, and the other one
– with children. 4-minute cartoon was chosen to elicit verbal reports
of the subjects. The original soundtrack is composed of several dialogues
which include a lot of highly emotional interrogatives, exclamations or
the kitten’s complaints and requests. In their reports both children and
adults used more than 800 verbs, which were classified according to their
argument structure. The analysis showed, that the percentage of different
verb argument structures coincides in both adults’ and children’s texts
and the most popular in both children’s and adults’ texts were the 1-argument
and 2-argument verbs, where the first arguments are in the form of nominative
case and the second in the form of the accusative one. But at the same
time, if we take a look at the distribution of verb argument structures
which are realized in the texts, we may find out that children tend to
use simpler structures than adults, with no third arguments or complements.
On the other hand, adults tend to simplify their sentences by omitting
the first arguments (subjects), while children try to fulfill all verb
slots which are necessary according to them. The paper proposes some explanations
of these trends.
Ferguson,
Iain
The Ideological Origins of the EU-Russia Relationship
This paper is about the ideological origins of the EU-Russia relationship
at the end of the Cold War. It focuses on the significance of two contrasting
ideas for securing constitutional democracy in the 'New Europe'. The first
of these, Our Common European House, will be familiar to many Russianists.
It was brought into mainstream European politics by Gorbachev in 1989,
but reflects a strategic vision of Soviet foreign policy that stretches
back to early 1980's. The other, Uti Possedetis Juris, will be familiar
to scholars of the EU's engagements in the Balkans. This is the principal
for determining international borders that the Badinter Commission employed
in its peacemaking intervention that resulted in the breakup of Yugoslavia.
It is argued that both of these political ideas are expressions of European
political constitutionalism. In other words, they represent a commitment
to non-domination as the basic case for establishing a European system
of self-rule, and also dictate how this system should operate and be organised.
The problem is that these ideas of European political constitutionalism
pull in opposite directions. It is argued that this contradiction explains
the intense and uncomfortable character to the relationship between the
EU and Russia in the governing of post-Cold War Europe. This paper outlines
the first chapter and main argument of the author's PhD thesis that he
started this year.
Fleming,
Michael
Socialism, Post-socialism and Violence: The Case of Poland
This paper responds to Bradshaw and Stenning’s (2004:254) call to account
for the uniqueness of post-socialism, and argues that by comparing ‘regimes
of violence’, which characterise particular socio-economic formations,
a clearer conception of the post-socialist conjuncture can emerge. Though
the argument refers to socialist and post-socialist Poland, the paper
seeks to contribute to the wider debate about the nature of post-socialism.
Frear,
Matthew
The Opposition in Contemporary Belarus: Rhetoric and Reality
The regime of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is best known as the 'last
dictatorship in Europe' and 2009 marked his fifteenth anniversary in power.
Opponents of his increasingly authoritarian rule have unquestionably suffered
persecution and repression – with arrests, disappearances, harassment,
beatings and the regime’s abuse of administrative resources. Nevertheless
the marginalisation of the opposition cannot be fully understood without
also examining its own weaknesses. This paper outlines three areas in
which the opposition has contributed to its own failings. Firstly it will
provide an overview of the numerous divisions within the broader opposition
community – ideological, generational, regional and personal. Secondly
it will argue that frequently there is a focus on simply trying to emulate
the success of colour revolutions elsewhere in the region, rather than
developing a longer term strategy specific to Belarus. Thirdly there is
a widening gap between opposition forces and Belarusian society, with
opposition leaders perceived as more interested in appealing to the international
community and potential donors rather than reaching out to the domestic
electorate, beyond their core supporters. While the coercive capacity
of the Lukashenka regime has hampered the ability of the opposition in
Belarus to function effectively, it is too simplistic to argue that it
is the sole factor in their lack of progress. While an appearance of opposition
unity may emerge around significant elections, in reality the anti-Lukashenka
forces have continued to repeat past failures for almost a decade, while
failing to develop a long-term, iterative grassroots strategy to win public
support.
Fung,
Kai-Yeung
Reading Fragments: Understanding Modern Experience Through
Tarkovsky’s “The Mirror”
This paper gives a rereading of Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (1975) through
Walter Benjamin’s understanding of the fragment. The film received criticisms
which attempt to resolve the ‘plots’ through finding symbols in it (e.g.
Johnson, Vida, and Graham Petrie: 1984, Mark LeFanu: 1987, Maya Turovskaya:
1989). This paper deviates from this view. The film is complicatedly crossed
between the past (a story about a mother and her son) and future (that
about the son and his wife). The timeline is deliberately blurred by having
the same actress to perform the mother and her son’s wife, and the same
actor the son’s and his own son’s boyhood. Furthermore, the narrative
is mostly constituted of dream-like images evoked by memories. The distinction
between these images and real-time images dissolves, which disintegrates
temporality, in which the past and future merge into the real-time present,
creating fragmentary images. These images, I suggest, are visual representation
of memoire involuntaire. It refers to the memory of the all-too-stimulating
experience shielded off by consciousness but it managed to leave traces
in memory. That the images in the film are fragmentary has to do with
the fact that the experience which is remembered through memoire involuntaire
registers no specific moments in time. That explains why in the film we
see fragmentary images which are completely disjointed in time. Can other
medium of arts achieve this? For Benjamin it is Proust who captures memoire
involuntaire in A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. How do words and images
differ in representing memoire involuntaire? How does Tarkovsky supplement
Benjamin’s theory of experience on the level of the visual?
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