You can find a brief section of my upcoming paper at the following link:
In this section I address governmental policy towards indigenous groups in 19th Century as well as Soviet policy in the 20th Century. These topics will fall in the middle of my final product so bear in mind that more information will come before and after these pages.
In response to Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in Moscow, as well as to the growing discontent at home, citizens of Poland, Hungary and eventually Czechoslovakia.
Poland: June 1956
Workers broke out in protest against the unpopular Communist regime and demanded better pay and treatment at the hands of the government. The demonstrations eventually fizzled out thanks to the reformist Wladyslaw Gomulka, who worked with Soviet leaders and the Polish Communist Party to appease the workers and avoid a revolution.
Hungary: October 1956
A year prior, Hungarian’s liberal leader Imre Nagy was removed from power by supporters of his previous opponent Matyas Rakosi (who had run Hungary up until 1953, when Nagy took power). Discontent continued to grow until October of 1956 when students who had followed the protests in Hungary staged a demonstration that turned violent. The violence soon grew out of hand with rebels arming themselves and forming councils to take over factories. Soviet forces were a part of the initial struggle but it wasn’t until October 31st that Khrushchev decided that a full invasion was necessary to control the situation. Nagy, who had been restored as Prime Minister on the 24th, frantically declared Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact in an attempt to place himself at the center of the revolutionaries resistance. Nagy was eventually captured, tried and executed by the Soviets, along with other insurgent leaders.
Czechoslovakia: 1968
Alexander Dubcek became First Secretary of Czechoslovakia in January 1968 and brought with him the promise of “socialism with a human face.” His grand vision of reform was most unwelcome to the Soviets, who not only feared what could happen in Czechoslovakia, but also what would happen if the wave of reform spread to the Union itself. Soviet officials tried to force Dubcek to abandon his reform plans but he argued that it was too late–the people had too much momentum to accept a return to old ways. In late August the Politburo launched a joint-Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to contain the situation.
This invasion translated into the new Brezhnev Doctrine, which asserted the rights of “the right and responsibility of Communist parties of fraternal socialist countries to intervene against anti-socialist degeneration.” (www.soviethistory.org) Although the invasion was relatively violent-free, the reform movement was squashed and would not regain momentum for quite a while.
This brief draft concerns the economic interests in Russia and how they have, and will shape, the development of nuclear policies in the country. In this early work, I acknowledge that I often seem to repeat myself. This, I believe, is the result of presenting the same information a number of times, but considering it from different standpoints. Upon revision I hope to condense what is said to become a briefer part of the overall project.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/drin61h6c1qbe8s/1000%20wrd.docx
In case you’re a bit under informed, the state of Georgia has not held Presidential elections in a second attempt to secede from the Union. I’m talking about the small nation-state of Georgia, which held presidential elections on the 27th of October. Georgia is located on the southwest border of Russia in the caucasus region and its relations with Russia have been strained, at best.
In August of 2008 the two countries, along with the separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, fought in a 5-day war that ended up being a huge embarrassment for Saakashvili, the Georgian president at the time. Although the events leading up to the war are somewhat complicated, what was obvious was Russia’s intention of ending Saakashvili’s rule and installing a new president. They were unsuccessful in 2008, but on November 13th they will achieve just that: Saakashvili will step down and make room for Georgia’s new president, Georgy Margvelashvili of the Georgian Dream Party.
Russia may finally be rid of Saakashvili, but it warns that Georgian-Russian relations will not see drastic improvements anytime soon. If citizens on both sides of the border were hoping for a detente of sorts with the new president, they may have to wait a while.
Side note: the Georgian Dream Party is supposedly named after this Georgian music group’s song of the same name:
[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo90tztqTL4″]
You may not understand a word, but it does show some beautiful Georgian scenery.
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
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.
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
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
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”]
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
Yesterday a meteorite was dredged from Lake Chebarkul, in the Southern Urals region, about 900 miles east of Moscow. The meteorite, which is believed to be a chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteor from the meteor shower last February due to the dents in its structure which are similar to the Chelyabinsk meteors. The rock is 5 feet long and weighs approximately 1,255 pounds but upon weighing the rock, it broke into 3 pieces. According to the BBC website and the meteorite curator at the London Natural History Museum, the rock has the markings and “thick melted crust” of a meteorite.
The lake itself is bordered on other sides by towns, Chebarkul and Chelyabinsk. Several small islands on the lake are used as sanatoria. Is it dangerous to live and have rest or vacation homes on a lake where meteorites have been known to land? Should measures be taken to observe the sky more carefully for further meteor showers?
source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/16/235486934/divers-dredge-up-a-half-ton-chunk-of-russian-meteorite