History Commons^™

Glasnost, Perestroika And Big Mac's: The Significance Of Mcdonald's In The Changing Face Of The Ussr, Theresa Bartholomew

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Early on the morning of 30 January 1990, George Cohon, president of McDonald'sCanada, left his hotel room and drove to Pushkin Square in Moscow. Nervous about the international press that would be covering the opening of the first McDonald's in this nation and anxious to make the opening perfect, he arrived to see the streets empty in front of the fast-food restaurant except for a lone policeman. Wondering where the anticipated crowds of Muscovites were, Cohon approached the officer, concerned by the apparent lack of interest in the first McDonald's opening in the Soviet Union. After a short conversation with …

The Time Of Troubles Causation, Class Warfare, And Conflicting Interpretations, Jeffrey S. Hardy

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The end of a dynasty in medieval or early modern Europe was often followed by a calamitous period of conspiracy and revolt, intrigue and bloodshed. Such was the case in Russia from 1598 to 1613, the period later called the Time of Troubles. Few epochs still weigh on the collective conscience of the Russian people as does the Time of Troubles. Fears associated with this period remain to this day, as evidenced by the frequent references to it after the fall of the Soviet regime. But the Time of Troubles has not always been well understood. The chroniclers and revisionists …

Early Russian-Chinese Relations, Dean William Bennett

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In February. 1654, Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich Romanov dispatched a friendly, if rather pompous, letter on its way across the vast steppes of Siberia and Mongolia to the emperor of China, Shun-chih. In this letter he lamented that the rulers of the two realms had never before established any official contact between themselves, and he expressed a fond hope that the tsar and the emperor might live thenceforth "in friendship, love, and communication." The prospects should have been alluring, promising trade and wealth for both states, and also frequent exchanges of embassies. But less than three years later, the leader of …

Apotheosis Of The State And The Decline Of Civilization: A Systems Approach, Robert Bedeski

Comparative Civilizations Review

Humanity is undergoing a second Axial Age. The first, as described by Karl Jaspers, brought transcendence into the vision and self-understanding of humans and the world. The rise of secularism and “Death of God” is dissolving and fragmenting that transcendence — a vital subsystem of the civilization system. Economy, knowledge and government comprise three additional subsystems and have coalesced to form the modern sovereign state, diminishing the traditional place of religion, art and philosophy in civilizations. An example of a state lacking common institutions of transcendence was the Mongol empire. Ruling Russia for a quarter millennium, its state form was …

Edvard Benes And His Policy To Expel Czechoslovakian Germans, Travis Mueller

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

At the end of World War II, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and the Czechoslovak Republic expelled fifteen million Germans from their homelands in Eastern and Central Europe. During the eviction to the occupied zones of Germany, two million Germans perished.1 Often brutally mistreated, these Germans suffered the wrath of a great European backlash against the Nazis. Nowhere was the expulsion more brutal than in the Czechoslovak Republic. The two nations' shared border and intertwined history made the expulsion of over three million Germans mainly from the Sudetenland-particularly severe.

The Soul Of Russia And The Soul Of Ukraine, David Wilkinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

This essay addresses the issue of two contemporary state identities — that of Russia and that of Ukraine.

Midwifery And Society: A Comparative Analysis Of The Uk And Ussr From 1920-1950, Melissa Scott

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this project is to analyze the changes made in midwifery policy and practices in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom from 1920-1950. The changes made were essentially the following in both countries: required state certification, standardization of pay and schooling, and combating tradition in rural areas. Although they made similar changes, their political ideology and rhetoric was significantly different from one another. The rhetoric used in the Soviet Union in discussing midwifery policies and responsibilities was nationalistic while the rhetoric used in the United Kingdom was much more functionalistic. There were also additional political and societal …

Katja, Ketevahi 'Katje', Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ketevahi “Katja” is from Georgia. She’s in her late 40’s. She grew up on a farm in the country and became the financial support for her family after her mother died and her father became “emaciated.” When Putin came to power, diplomatic ties deteriorated between Georgia and Russia, which eventually led to war. She fled her country using forged documents and first worked in Turkey but has now lived in Naples for nine years and regularly sends money home to her brother, who cares for their father.

Katja expresses her feelings about war, government, liberty, and what it means to …

How Soviet Russia Liberated Women: The Soviet Model In Clara Zetkin's Periodical 'Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale', Liberty Peterson Sproat

Theses and Dissertations

Clara Zetkin was celebrated in both Germany and the Soviet Union before World War II because of her active involvement in the communist movement. She wrote prolifically and preached the virtues of socialism. She concerned herself particularly with women's needs, arguing that women would respond best to a different form of agitation than that used among men. Zetkin asserted that communism was the only way to respond to women's concerns as mothers and that only state involvement in domestic life would allow women to be fully emancipated. Women needed freedom from household work and increased training and support to aid …