Gender as Survival: Women's Experiences of Deportation from Romania to the Soviet Union, 1945–1950

This paper offers hypotheses on the role that state social welfare measures can play in reflecting nationalism and in aggravating interethnic tensions. Social welfare is often overlooked in theoretical literature on nationalism, because of the widespread assumption that the welfare state promotes social cohesion. However, social welfare systems may face contradictions between the goal of promoting universal access to all citizens on the one hand, and social pressures to recognize particular groups in distinct ways on the other. Examples from the post-Soviet context (particularly Russia) are offered to illustrate the ways in which social welfare issues may be perceived as having ethnic connotations.     

Between the Accepted and the Legal: Violence in Honor Disputes in Uruguay (1945–1970)

This article addresses the specific character of interpersonal violence in Uruguay during the second half of the twentieth century (1945–1970). This study tries to establish the relation between self-defense and honor as expressed by Uruguayan law and accepted social codes. Deriving from this relation, the analysis identifies the emergence of a double system for legitimizing the use of violence: the honor disputes stipulated by the law and the observance of accepted and shared sociocultural codes. Walter Benjamin and Max Weber believed that the State had to establish the monopoly on violence as a way of guaranteeing its very existence. Nevertheless, it seems from this analysis that contrary to this assumption, it was from the law itself and the spaces it left open for subjective interpretation that private violence was legitimized. Moreover, this study proposes an approach that contradicts existing research which uncritically assumes the idealized pacific character of Uruguayan society.     

“Socialist in content,national in form:” the making of Soviet national art and the case of Buryatia

This article examines the fine art of the Soviet national republics and its discourse in the Soviet Union, which were considerably shaped under the influence of socialist realism and Soviet nationality policy. While examining the central categories of Soviet artistic discourse such as the “national form,” “national distinctness,” and “tradition,” as well as cultural and scientific institutions responsible for the image of art of non-Russian nationalities, the author reveals the existence of a number of colonial features and discursive and institutional practices that foster a cultural divide between Russian and non-Russian culture and contribute to the marginalization of art. Special attention is paid to the implications of this discursive shaping for the local artistic scene in Buryatia.     

Things Can Only Get Better? Changing Views of the Past,Present and Future in the Former Soviet Union

Previous research has reported substantial levels of nostalgia for the Soviet era among citizens of some of the independent republics that emerged from its collapse. We report new analyses from eight former Soviet republics, and from two surveys, in 2001 and 2010, comparing attitudes to government in the Soviet period and at the time of the surveys, as well as expectations for the future. Everywhere, views of the past have become less positive and those of the present more positive. However, both the views in each survey and the change between each of them vary among countries and socio-demographic groups.     

Discontent and Uncertainty in the Borderlands: Soviet Moldavia and the Secret Speech 1956–1957

This article examines reactions to de-Stalinisation in Soviet Moldavia between February 1956 and March 1957. The article is based on evidence from the archives of both the former Communist Party of Moldavia and the Moldavian KGB. It highlights the uncertainty there was at local levels because of the denunciation of Stalin. Local party reports demonstrate concern about the activities of religious activists, Western propaganda, nationalism and disaffected youth. The Hungarian revolution of 1956 caused the party to change tack, and to begin a clampdown. These reports highlight that Soviet rule had very shallow roots in Moldavia.