History Commons^™

Military Women In World Cinema: A 20th Century History And Filmography, Introduction, Deborah A. Deacon, Stacy Fowler

Faculty Articles

From British soldier Flora Sandes to the fame World War II Night Witches of the Soviet Air Force, women across the globe stepped up to defend their countries during every major and minor conflict of the twentieth century, and filmmakers have long attempted to capture their stories.

This book analyzes real and fictional military women's portrayals in world cinema, including movies from Israel, the United Kingdom, Italy, China, France, the Soviet Union, and others. It includes theatrical releases, direct-to-video productions, and made-for-television films.

Chapters, organized by decade, address topics including the women's sexuality, maternal and marital status, leadership skills, actual …

Women And Violence In Revolutionary Russia, 1860-1925, Jenny R. Findsen

All Master's Theses

Russian women engaged in public violence during the late imperial and revolutionary periods in various ways and for a variety of reasons. This study examines traditional gender roles in Russia, and women’s motivations for female terrorism as well as military and police service. It establishes that women broke through patriarchal social barriers through violence, even while still embracing traditionally feminine notions of self-sacrifice for the common good. Based on primary sources such as memoirs, official policies, and newspaper articles, I argue that Russian women committed both illegal and officially sanctioned violence to achieve diverse personal, ideological, political, material, and familial …

Express Yourself: Investigating Wartime Deportations In The Context Of Changing Soviet National Policy, Beryl Emily Taylor

Senior Projects Spring 2015

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Heroes Of Berlin Wall Struggle, William D. Bowman

History Faculty Publications

When the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, on Nov. 9, 1989, symbolically signaling the end of the Cold War, it was no surprise that many credited President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for bringing it down.

But the true heroes behind the fall of the Berlin Wall are those Eastern Europeans whose protests and political pressure started chipping away at the wall years before. East German citizens from a variety of political backgrounds and occupations risked their freedom in protests against communist policies and one-party rule in what they called the "peaceful revolution." [excerpt]

So We Ran..., Sara R. Bias

Student Publications

This paper tells the true story of a Hungarian refugee who's family fled the communist regime there in 1971. Gabriella Bercze's story reflects on what it was like to live in Hungary under communist rule, and her family's experience in escaping the country, and fleeing to Italy, where they lived in a refugee camp for months before immigrating to the United States in the early 70s.

Introduction: Continuity And Change In Russian Culture, Dmitri N. Shalin

Russian Culture

This project on Russian culture goes back to the Spring of 1990 when several American and Russian scholars converged at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University and decided to join forces in a study of changes sweeping the Soviet Union. From the start, the participants agreed that they would not try to chase fast breaking news from Russia -- a hopeless task given the pace of recent changes, but rather would focus on the continuity and change in Russian culture, on the long-term social forces that compel the Russian people to reexamine old ways and reevaluate old values.

Civic Culture: Public Opinion And The Resurgence Of Civic Culture, Yuri Levada

Russian Culture

There has hardly been a stretch in Russian history more saturated with sweeping changes than the period between 1988-1993. Packed into this exceedingly brief historical era are the rise of "perestroika" and the fall of its illustrious leader, Mikhail Gorbachev; the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence in its place of 15 independent states; the August '91 communist putsch and the democrats' triumphant ascension to power; the proliferation of virulent ethnic conflicts and the recognition of the abiding need for cooperation; the bloody October '93 confrontation between the executive and legislative powers and the surprising strength that the …

Historical Culture: Russia In Search Of Itself, Boris Paramonov

Russian Culture

Russia's 75 year-long experiment with communism is over, but the question persists as to whether the Soviet regime was a historical aberration or an expression of the country's destiny. This question is as old as the Bolshevik revolution. It has produced a voluminous literature and will no doubt continue to attract attention in the near future. Alas, it can not be answered conclusively, for it is grounded in the questioner's ideological a priori and tells us more about the historian's biases than about Russian history.

Soviet Everyday Culture: An Oxymoron?, Svetlana Boym

Russian Culture

Mikhail Mishin, a Soviet satirist, wrote that Russians recognize themselves in the famous fairy-tale character Ivan the Fool. He bides his time napping on the heated furnace and gets up only to undertake major heroic feats. Ivan the Fool might be a great hero, but he has no idea how to survive his everyday life. Everyday life, captured in the Russian word byt, is a more dangerous enemy to him than the multi-headed fire-spitting dragon. The everyday is Russia 's cultural monster. The nation might worship its heroes and their fabled ability to withstand hell or high water, but …

Psychological Culture: Ambivalence And Resistance To Social Change, Alexander Etkind

Russian Culture

"National character," "modal personality," "collective unconscious," "ethnic mentality," "cultural identity" -- these and similar notions are designed to capture psychological traits that distinguish one social group from another. Attempts to isolate such hypothetical qualities are not different in principle from efforts to describe religious, legal, or other social patterns found among people who have lived together for a length of time, except that psychological constructs tend to focus on subjective characteristics and are somewhat harder to identify. For the first time, the link between culture and psychology came under close scrutiny in the nineteen century. German linguists Steinthal and Lazarus …

Intellectual Culture: The End Of Russian Intelligentsia, Dmitri N. Shalin

Russian Culture

No group cheered louder for Soviet reform, had a bigger stake in perestroika, and suffered more in its aftermath than did the Russian intelligentsia. Today, nearly a decade after Mikhail Gorbachev unveiled his plan to reform Soviet society, the mood among Russian intellectuals is decidedly gloomy. "The intelligentsia has carried perestroika on its shoulders," laments Ury Shchekochikhin, "so why does it feel so forlorn, superfluous, forgotten"? G. Ivanitsky warns that the intellectual strata "has become so thin that in three or four years the current genocide against the intelligentsia would surely wipe it out." Andrey Bitov, one of the country's …

Moral Culture: Public Morality And Private Responsibility, Igor Kon

Russian Culture

When Mikhail Gorbachev unfurled his reform banners in the late 1980's, many observers inside and outside Russia hailed perestroika as a moral renaissance. The Soviet Union was indeed a spiritually bankrupt society at the time, its citizens demanding a clean break with the past and yearning for a better future. Despite the new openness or glasnost, the changes have been slow in coming and often very controversial. A public opinion survey conducted in February 1991 showed the country morally adrift and deeply divided about the course of reforms.

Defying De-Stalinization: Albania’S 1956, Elidor Mehilli

Publications and Research

Drawing on recently declassified Albanian, Soviet, East German, and Western archival sources, as well as a rich historiography on Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech and the Hungarian revolution of 1956, this article investigates the little-known events of 1956 in Albania. Rejecting de-Stalinization, the Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha was able to vindicate his position against Yugoslavia's brand of socialism abroad, fortify his rule at home, and claim more aid from Moscow, Beijing, and the Soviet bloc. This article discusses the Tirana Party Conference of April 1956, treating the Albanian Party of Labor (the Communist party) as an “information society.” The article …

Pope John Paul Ii, The Assassination Attempt, And The Soviet Union, Daniel C. Scotto

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

“The attempt to murder the pope remains one of the century’s great mysteries,” wrote Carl Bernstein and Marco Politti in their 1996 biography of Pope John Paul II. Indeed, the mystery has remained unsolved since the pope was shot and wounded on May 13, 1981. A recent investigation concluded that the Soviet government was the perpetrator, but the situation should be examined in a broader historical context. What actually happened on May 13, 1981? Was it the sole decision and action of Mehmet Ali Agca, who was expressing his opposition to “Western imperialist policies,” as he had written in a …

Miyamoto Yuriko And The Soviet Propaganda, George T. Sipos

George T. Sipos

No abstract provided.

A Future For Socialism In The Ussr?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This paper was written before the Fall, and when the fate of the former Soviet Union and Marxism in it was still in question. At the time many people interested in Soviet politics had high expectations for Gorbachev's reform program, with some expectation that it would rescue "actually existing socialism" from its crisis. The paper took a more pessimistic view, correctly identifying, in retrospect, the factors that lead to the internal loss of faith in socialism in the Soviet ruling elite, the basic nature and trajectory of perestroika and itys centrifugal effects on the USSR itself., and the ultimate rise …

The Rhetorical Factors Applied To The Reorientation Of American Public Opinion Toward The Soviet Union Immediately After June 22, 1941, Stanley Paul Berry

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis asks the question: what rhetorical factors were applied to the reorientation of American public opinion toward the Soviet Union immediately after June 22, 1941. A brief review of American diplomatic trends leading to June 22, 1941 is provided. The term rhetoric is operationally defined and the limits establishing causation between persuasion and opinion are delineated. The national communication process is explained and a national opinion profile, as it existed in the spring of 1941, is described. Initial persuasive responses to the Russo-German war are addressed and analyzed. The primary persuasive goals are identified as improving the public's image …

Contemporary Soviet Life, Phyllis Theresa Faulkner

Honors Theses

In October of 1917, the Bolshevik Party, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, led a revolution and took over the Provisional Government. Unlike others, who had failed before them, the Bolsheviks were successful in that they involved the peasants in the revolutionary effort. Theirs was a revolution for the people, for the workers. It was not directed as had been the others, toward the upper and middle classes. To get the support which they so desperately needed from the peasants they promised nationalization of the land. No longer would the peasants be exploited by their landlords. They were promised the …

Ursinus College Alumni Journal, November 1965, Richard P. Richter, Judith Armstrong, Lucille Hunt Bone, Charles Hudnut, Roger P. Staiger, Raymond V. Gurzynski, Blanche B. Schultz, Elaine Teune, William Lukens, Christopher Fuges, Donald L. Helfferich, George S. Spohn, Frederic Yocum, H. Craig Heller

Ursinus College Alumni Journal, 1937-1969

First words • From the President • Planning for the future at Ursinus College • Start of a four-year celebration • Guide to Centennial giving • Soviet portfolio: Rise and fall of the literary temperature; Evgeny Yevtushenko, Siberian pastorale; Memories of a Russian honeymoon • Founders Day is Ladies Day • Alumni come home to Ursinus • The many lives of Wismer Hall • Matching gifts lift industry & academia • Found: Preacher Mack • On Peace Corps duty in Thailand • The war trap • Lengthening list • Sporting scene • Campus clippings • Letters • Profiles: Four Ursinus …