The Social History Of Post Communist Russia

This book tells the untold story of how ordinary Russian people experienced and coped with Russia’s transformations after the end of communism. Unlike most studies of the subject which focus on high politics, developments in the elite and events at the centre, this book, which includes findings from interviews, memoirs, public opinion surveys and press articles and documents from the regions, portrays a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional society with different groups affected by the deep and varied changes in diverse and different ways. The book covers economic developments, social changes, how official policies played out at the grass-roots level, the psychological impact of the changes and the impact on public opinion, and how different regions were affected differently. Overall, the book reveals the hidden dynamics of Russian society, including its formal and informal mechanisms and rules for relating to the state and other citizens, and shows how millions of Russians coped, despite all the odds, and maintained the integrity and stability of the country.

Located within the forgotten half of Europe, historically trapped between Germany and Russia, Estonia has been profoundly shaped by the violent conflicts and shifting political fortunes of the last century. This innovative study traces the tangled interaction of Estonian historical memory and national identity in a sweeping analysis extending from the Great War to the present day. At its heart is the enduring anguish of World War Two and the subsequent half-century of Soviet rule. Shadowlands tells this story by foregrounding the experiences of the country’s intellectuals, who were instrumental in sustaining Estonian historical memory, but who until fairly recently could not openly grapple with their nation’s complex, difficult past.

This is the first comprehensive study of Russian political and social thought in the post-Communist era. The book portrays and critically examines the conceptual and theoretical attempts by Russian scholars and political thinkers to make sense of the challenges of post-communism and the trials of economic, political and social transformation. It brings together the various strands of political thought that have been formulated in the wake of the collapsed communist doctrine. It engages constructively with the numerous attempts by Russian political theorists and social scientists to articulate a coherent model of liberal democracy in their country. The book investigates critical, as well as favourable voices, in the Russian debate on liberal democracy, a debate often marked by eclecticism and, at times, little conceptual discipline. As such, the book will be of great interest both to Russian specialists, and to all those interested in political and social thought more widely.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the question of 'whither Russia?' has been the source of ceaseless speculation both at home and abroad. In search of answers, twelve highly qualified scholars examine the complex interplay between continuity and change that has marked developments in Russia under the leadership first of Boris Yeltsin and now of Vladimir Putin. Analsying the recent past, they also peer into the country's future. In his introduction to the volume Peter Rutland asks whether we are witnessing the gradual entrenchment of parliamentary democracy, the slow return to autocracy or mere political stagnation. Restructuring Post-Communist Russia poses the fundamental questions while providing the information and analysis needed to give the (at least, preliminary) answers.

Offering a single, coherent framework of the political, economic, and social phenomena that characterize post-communist regimes, this is the most comprehensive work on the subject to date. Focusing on Central Europe, the post-Soviet countries and China, the study provides a systematic mapping of possible post-communist trajectories. At exploring the structural foundations of post-communist regime development, the work discusses the types of state, with an emphasis on informality and patronalism; the variety of actors in the political, economic, and communal spheres; the ways autocrats neutralize media, elections, etc. The analysis embraces the color revolutions of civil resistance (as in Georgia and in Ukraine) and the defensive mechanisms of democracy and autocracy; the evolution of corruption and the workings of “relational economy”; an analysis of China as “market-exploiting dictatorship”; the sociology of “clientage society”; and the instrumental use of ideology, with an emphasis on populism. Beyond a cataloguing of phenomena—actors, institutions, and dynamics of post-communist democracies, autocracies, and dictatorships—Magyar and Madlovics also conceptualize everything as building blocks to a larger, coherent structure: a new language for post-communist regimes. While being the most definitive book on the topic, the book is nevertheless written in an accessible style suitable for both beginners who wish to understand the logic of post-communism and scholars who are interested in original contributions to comparative regime theory. The book is equipped with QR codes that link to www.postcommunistregimes.com, which contains interactive, 3D supplementary material for teaching.

This captivating volume brings together case studies drawn from four post-Soviet states—Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. The collected papers illustrate how the events that started in 1985 and brought down the USSR six years later led to the rise of fifteen successor states, with their own historicized collective memories. The volume’s analyses juxtapose history textbooks for secondary schools and universities, and how they aim to create understandings as well as identities that are politically usable, within their different contexts. From this emerges a picture of multiple perestroika(s) and diverging development paths. Only in Ukraine—a country that recently experienced two popular uprisings, the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity—the people themselves are ascribed agency and the power to change their country. In the other three states, elites are, instead, presented as prime movers of society, as is historical determinism. The volume’s contributors are Diana Bencheci, Andrei Dudchik, Liliya Erushkina, Marharyta Fabrykant, Alexandr Gorylev, Andrey Kashin, Alla Marchenko, Valerii Mosneagu, Alexey Rusakov, Natalia Tregubova, and Yuliya Yurchuk.

The classic study of Russian society and government. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

"This edited collection is a contribution to the emerging field of oral history research in the post-socialist societies of Central Europe and former Soviet Union, and demonstrates what oral history can contribute to the changing nature of post-socialist social sciences."--