Monthly Archives: October 2013

Replanning Sevastopol

Posted on by

Students know of the widespread devastation that resulted from WWII, but most history lessons stop just short of how those countries, cities and towns picked up the pieces and rebuilt their homes. As this reading shows, it wasn’t an easy task. Sevastopol needed to be completely rebuilt–and not just the buildings, but social services as well. Infrastructure was close to nonexistent, public health services were failing the population and all the while, architects and city planners were attempting to “russify” the Ukrainian city with a city-wide face lift in the Russian style.

Credit: crisisboom.com

Credit: crisisboom.com

In typical Soviet Union fashion, the state wanted Sevastopol to be rebuilt in the Russian image. As Professor Qualls wrote in his article, “the perceived reversion to tradition meant a Russian ethnic identification wrapped in a Greek architectural façade, yet devoid of all hints of competing identifications.” When I read this, I was completely unfazed. Why of course the government would use this opportunity to impose Russian culture on  Sevastopol. It would be logical for the people of Sevastopol to want to rebuild their own heritage, commemorate their losses in their own fashion and construct a city of their own choosing–but this wasn’t an option under Soviet rule.

It was this “top-down” approach to reconstruction that most caught my attention in the article, but the health and safety conditions plaguing the city were of great importance as well. It took several years before disease began to decline, living conditions (such as apartments with adequate space so as not to spread disease) improved, health services (such as ambulances) were restored and the population began to rebound. Of course, the important thing is that the city did achieve this stability, but I’m sure that if compared to the reconstruction timelines of Western European nations, the case of Sevastopol look quite bad.

European Dictators: The Worse of Two Evils?

Posted on by

While viewing pictures of the gulags on gulaghistory.org, I was reminded of the pictures of Auschwicz  I had seen in high school during our holocaust unit. The starvation, disease, and forced labor I read about on the site, as well as in the book A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich seemed reminiscent of the Nazi concentration camps.

These facts made me wonder why in American culture Joseph Stalin’s crimes often seem to be minimized. (Not that I believe Hitler’s crimes are exaggerated at all.)  According to the Jewish Virtual Library, 11 million people were killed in the Holocaust. According to the International Business Times, Stalin’s kill count is estimated to be 20 million. *Both counts vary according to different sources.

I will not try to determine “who is worse.”  I am merely examining why Hitler seems so much more evil to Americans than Stalin does, while, at first glance, they committed similar crimes.

I think the reason America remembers Hitler more than Stalin is because 1) Hitler was concerned with the extermination of certain races 2) Hitler killed using more sadistic methods 3) Stalin’s crimes were internalized to his country and 4) Stalin had been an American ally.

While Hitler was probably “more racist” as his entire philosophy was based around race, Stalin wasn’t exactly Martin Luther King. He sent various nationalities to the gulags because he perceived them as a threat.  These nationalities included Ukrainians, Germans, and yes, Jews.  So Stalin was also anti-Semitic.  Though he was arguably less so than Hitler, (he didn’t want to actually exterminate them), does it really matter who is more or less anti-Semitic?  Both of them killed people simply for being Jewish.  Which we can all agree is incredibly wrong.

Yes, Hitler was definitely more sadistic than Stalin. While Stalin killed people who he felt threatened by, Hitler almost seemed to take joy in the pure act of sadistic killing. My guess is that this is what truly sets the two apart in the minds of most Americans. Stalin joins the ranks of Genghis Khan and the ancient Roman emperors- killing because they believed they had to in order to remain in power. Hitler’s more of a Jeffrey Dahmer figure with unlimited power.

Hitler also attempted to take over Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, the Netherlands, France and an alliance with Italy, and an attempt on Russia. When he would take over a country, he would send the local Jewish, Romani, handicapped, etc. populations to concentration camps (except in the case of Poland, where he basically sent anyone he could).  Stalin stuck to the Soviet Union. While it was the largest country in the world at the time, it was Stalin’s, so he could more or less do as he pleased.

Finally, during World War II, the United States sided with the Soviet Union, and Stalin. First of all, Soviet troops fought valiantly against Hitler, following the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” rule.  Also, as we did ally ourselves with Stalin, we may have trouble admitting we sided with someone who was basically as evil as the one we were fighting against.

Stalin is perceived as less racist and less sadistic than Hitler. He stuck to his own territory and was even an American ally for a little while. Whether deserved or not, these reasons make Stalin the “lesser of two evils” for many Americans.

 

Charges Reduced in Greenpeace Case

Posted on by

Yesterday, Russian investigators reduced the charges against the crew members of the Greenpeace ship who held a protest against exploitation of natural resources at an oil rig in the Arctic Ocean from piracy to hooliganism.  Piracy charges could have resulted in a prison sentence of 15 years while the penalty for hooliganism is 7 years. Russia’s Investigative Committee has presumably lowered these charges in order to avoid any more diplomatic confrontation over the fate of the crew members, who hail from over 18 nations. Members of Greenpeace Russia believe that even the charges of hooliganism should be dropped, as it was a peaceful protest.

After the protest on September 19th, the ship was towed to Murmansk, where everyone on board was charged with piracy and denied bail. President Putin remarked a month ago that piracy was not an appropriate charge but agreed that Russia’s border guards had the right to cut the scaling cables of the activists and fire warning shots. These remarks made have helped reduce the charges, but why not earlier? Why are possible charges of violence against authorities being mentioned if none of the crew members nor activists were armed or resisted upon arrest?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/world/europe/russia-reduces-charges-against-greenpeace-activists.html

Disappearing Cultures of Northern Siberia

Posted on by

I was happy to discover that sources on my research topic were plentiful in both the scholarly and the cyber world. The websites were typically more recently published than some of my scholarly sources, but there are some exceptions. The web sites are, as expected, more interactive and interesting to read than many of the scholarly sources simply because most have color photos. Most of my online sources were produced by organizations aiming to raise awareness for these groups, rather than scholars doing research like my print sources.

I’ve learned that each type of source has its use. For instance, scholarly journal articles are typically much more focused in scope and so to search for and use them your research questions must also be more narrowed. Books are daunting sources because they hold so much information, but again, if you narrow your scope you can limit yourselves to chapters within books, rather than read the entire thing. It is my website sources that have surprised me the most. After 3 years in college I had ultimately written off websites as being of any use in a formal research paper, but this project has changed my mind. Of course, a bibliography should not be built entirely upon websites, but as long as the site is credible it can be a great source for background information and media, as well as a springboard for other sources, whether cyber or in-print.

This project has certainly taught me to broaden my research parameters to include multiple types of sources. It has also showed me the benefits of breaking a large project into chunks and completing smaller tasks along the way. That is not a new discovery, but it is something that I often forget in my busy day-to-day life. I’ve also discovered just how useful certain online tools can be (the Evernote clipper tool is a great example.) Even though Evernote itself hasn’t been groundbreaking in this research process, the clipper tool has been refreshingly useful. Blogging on my paper topic has also helped me develop my ideas and think about my project in new ways.

Moving forward, I am going to focus on answering three questions: how did the lives of these tribes people change as a result of Soviet policy? How did they try to adapt to these changes? Were their adaptions successful?

I realize that these questions can may still change as I finish my research, however I believe they get at the heart of what it means for a culture to “disappear.” In order to answer these questions, I will need to understand tribal life before these Soviet policies, exactly how these Soviet policies affected the traditional way of life, and how these cultures have fared since. I believe all of my sources cover these aspects and more, but I will being by focusing on journal articles that have clearly stated theses and arguments to help me get on my way.

Below is a link to my updated annotated bibliography:

Annotated Bibliography with Web Sites

 

Housing the Poor in England

Posted on by

In the documentary Housing Problems, directors Elton and Anstey attempt to document the living conditions of workers in the slums of England. As they document the current conditions and the current/proposed changes, there is an interesting trend to note: the involvement of the private sector in solving the poor’s issues. Rather than leave the government to design, build and construct new buildings designed to improve the living conditions of the poor, businesses such as cement firms and gas companies were promoting contests in which new living quarters were developed. While this is an interesting development, the real question is why are these business promoting these contests? How does it benefit them? Why are they doing such activities?

As we see these trends in inter-war Europe, we as students truly fail to contextualize the futurism that is promoted in the documentaries and where reality truly went. While all of the developments mentioned in the new “slum” buildings would have created a fantastic world, how many of these buildings were constructed in reality? We see the blip in the attempt to deal with poverty, but fail to grasp what these evolutions mean in the overall history of Europe.

Unintended Consequences of Nuclear Development

Posted on by

Bibliography

During my research for informational websites relevant to my topic, I came across a lot of overlapping information about the effects the nuclear industry has had on our environment. The two most valuable web sources are wikipedia, and the information from the nuclear weapons archive. Both websites have the most expansive but simultaneously in depth information on my topic. A few of the websites cover both high and low level effects on the environment, and others discuss the effects on humans and cancer on the subatomic level.

The websites span from topic of nuclear weapons testing to information justifying the banning of nuclear testing through the passing of treaties. My sources are all very recent with the exception of the source belonging to the nuclear weapons archive, which dates back to 1997. I did not use the Evernote application in my research, therefore I have no feedback to how it positively or negatively effected my progress. This is the first time I have ever used the Dropbox program. I found it to be very a straightforward and convenient way to share documents. The scope of my research hasn’t changed as a result of my new sources, as they all had specific relevance to my original topic. I am going to proceed by collaborating with Barret to make sure our research aligns to stay relevant, and will continue to focus on the unintended nuclear effects that testing and reactors have had on the environment and humans.

Shrinkage of the Aral Sea

Posted on by

My final report is about the shrinkage of the Aral Sea.  I will be concentrating on four points.    The first point is the cause of the shrinkage of the Aral Sea.  I will discuss how the Soviets in Moscow wanted to harvest great quantities of cotton from Central Asia.  In order to do this, they used the Aral Sea for irrigation to such an extent that the sea’s area shrank by 44%.  This caused many health and environmental consequences for Central Asia.

The environmental consequences that I will discuss include flooding due to poor drainage systems, the poisoning of water and soil by pesticides used to grow the cotton, dust storms, and deforestation. The health consequences I plan on discussing include starvation, infant mortality, contaminated breast milk, and the prevalence of water-born illnesses such as typhoid, hepatitis, and dysentery.

The final point of discussion will be the possibility of rebuilding the Aral Sea, along with the successes that have occurred since the collapse of the USSR.

I will need to continue doing more research for my report.  I am anticipating that the most challenging part of the project for me will not be the material, but the technological aspect of creating a website.  This is the part that I will need to dedicate the most time to, as I have never done anything like it before.

So far, I have learned the importance of examining sources on multiple levels.  First, getting articles from reliable databases, such as JSTOR, helps. Also, the fact that some of the authors I cited were cited in other scholarly articles gives more credibility to the authors. It is also important to have articles written by professionals, such as historians and scientists, and not university students or bloggers. The author’s credentials separate a scholarly article from an unscholarly article.

I also had to make sure, especially in the scientific texts, that I understood the point of the article. If an article is too difficult to comprehend, then it is pointless to cite it.

As for my critique of Evernote, my only issue was that it changed the format of the bibliography.  I found it easier to use Microsoft Word.

Here is my annotated bibliography:

annotated bibliography HIST 254

Housing Problems

Posted on by

Housing Problems is a 1935 document about housing problems in Britain. The video is very similar to Orwell’s piece entitled ‘Road to Wigan Pier’. It depicts the poor conditions that the lower class in Britain had to live in. It is also interesting to notice that the people who are interviewed are wearing what appears to be decent clothes, with one man even wearing a three-piece suit, without the jacket. I don’t know if this was common attire, but in my opinion it looks like these people did their best to look good, despite the fact that this was a film documenting their poor living conditions. Logically, looking as bad as possible would be conducive to the documentary and thus to the possibility of attaining help, but the emotional response of the interviewees represents the idea of pride that was still prevalent in this ‘new poor’ section of society.

Solzhenitsyn — It was a Good Day

Posted on by

Does anything really  go wrong for Shukhov in “One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich”?Nah — to use the words of rapper Ice Cube — “it was a good day.”

So, how does Solhenitsyn convey the trials of camp life? Despite Shukhov’s experience at maneuvering camp politics and his relatively optimistic outlook, the audience can still see the hardships through how Shukhov notes his surroundings. The way he comments on the other ” zeks’ ” behavior, on how it will affect their lives in the camp, depict many of the lessons he has had to learn in the camps. Many instances of punishment or distress we read in this novel are portrayed through Shukhov’s experienced view. Ultimately, he does serve his sentence. But, Shukhov does this after being worn down by camp life and having to rebuild himself on experience. He knows who to avoid, and why; who to trust, and why; the politics of the camp, and how to maneuver; and the consequences the newer zeks face in the 104th due to their inexperience.

I’ve included a censored version of Ice Cube’s song below to illustrate the similar methods employed to depict hardship.

\[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_t1oNXU5CE”]

Tuberculosis in Russian Prisons

Posted on by

While researching articles and websites for this project, I found a common theme of the health care system in Russia and how it’s changed over the years for better or for worse. My sources agree that the ’80s and ’90s were a particularly bleak time for Russia’s health care system, especially in Russian prisons were infirmaries were smaller and more crowded than public hospitals and larger centers for spreading diseases. Several of the other sources also discuss the problem of drug resistant tuberculosis and how Russia’s high recidivism rates contribute to the issue of multi drug resistant tuberculosis in prisons.

In my research, I have found both the CDC and WHO websites very informational because basic facts and detailed statistics are available in the many reports on tuberculosis both institutions have released. Also, because my topic is so recent (tuberculosis first became a serious problem  in prisons in the 1990s), most of the articles and websites I found will be of more use than the books, which are older and focus more on Russian health care in general.

I found Evernote helpful for taking in-class notes but the formatting was easily corrupted when transferring files from the iPad to my computer and vice versa. I haven’t used Dropbox enough yet to form an opinion on its pros and cons, but hopefully it will be more useful in classsourcing our projects.

Here’s a link to my bibliography: http://goo.gl/mIpldK