Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Asian History Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Asian History

Retelling Mecca: Shifting Narratives Of Sacred Spaces In Volga-Ural Muslim Hajj Accounts, 1699–1945, Danielle Ross Jul 2021

Retelling Mecca: Shifting Narratives Of Sacred Spaces In Volga-Ural Muslim Hajj Accounts, 1699–1945, Danielle Ross

History Faculty Publications

This article examines how Volga-Ural Muslims narrated their encounters with the sacred spaces visited during the hajj. It examines nine accounts hajj composed from the 1690s to the 1940s, to consider how changes in international politics, Russia’s domestic politics, and the culture of Islamic learning within the Volga-Ural Muslim community led to writers to revise narratives of why the sacred spaces of Mecca were sacred, how best to experience the power of these sacred spaces, and how these sacred spaces fit into the local culture of Volga-Ural Islam under Russian and Soviet rule.


From Socialist To Post-Socialist Cities: Narrating The Nation Through Urban Space, Joshua Hagen, Alexander Diener Jul 2015

From Socialist To Post-Socialist Cities: Narrating The Nation Through Urban Space, Joshua Hagen, Alexander Diener

Joshua Hagen

The development of post-socialist cities has emerged as a major field of study among critical theorists from across the social sciences. Originally constructed under the dictates of central planners and designed to serve the demands of command economies, post-socialist urban centers currently develop at the nexus of varied and often competing economic, cultural, and political forces. Among these, nationalist aspirations, previously simmering beneath the official rhetoric of communist fraternity and veneer of architectural conformity, have emerged as dominant factors shaping the urban landscape. This article examines patterns, processes, and practices concerning the cultural politics of architecture, urban planning, and identity …


Chinese, Russian, And U.S. Space Warfare And Defense Developments, Bert Chapman Apr 2015

Chinese, Russian, And U.S. Space Warfare And Defense Developments, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Creative Materials

Provides information on the historical development and evolution of Chinese, Russian, and U.S. military space programs from 1985-2015. Places particular emphasis on the multiple U.S. Government agencies involved in military space programs.


Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun Jan 2012

Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun

Russian Culture

Soviet leaders had always taken a keen interest in workers' behavior and labor motives and sought to keep labor morality under strict state control. A complex network of values and regulations was developed for this purpose after the October Revolution of 1917. They were best articulated in the "political economy of socialism" which purported to present a scientific picture of the country's economic life. Textbooks on socialist economy were widely circulated in the Soviet Union and appropriate courses included into a core curriculum for all higher education institutions in the country. Basic tenets of socialist political economy were taught in …


Civic Culture: Public Opinion And The Resurgence Of Civic Culture, Yuri Levada Jan 2012

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 Jan 2012

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 Jan 2012

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 Jan 2012

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 Jan 2012

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 …


The Intelligentsia Without Revolution: The Culture Of The Silver Age, Andrei Ariev Jan 2012

The Intelligentsia Without Revolution: The Culture Of The Silver Age, Andrei Ariev

Russian Culture

The most effective definition of "the intelligentsia" might read: “Russian intellectuals who are generally opposed to the government.” But even Russia’s traditionally powerful government has collapsed at times, leaving a vacuum of authority. This was precisely the historical situation at the beginning of the twentieth century. It made an indelible impression both upon thinkers, such as Rozanov, and on politicians, such as Lenin.


Moral Culture: Public Morality And Private Responsibility, Igor Kon Jan 2012

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.


Law In Times Of War: The Case Of Chechnya, Federico Sperotto Aug 2007

Law In Times Of War: The Case Of Chechnya, Federico Sperotto

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In October 1999 “the second Chechen war” broke out. In December the Russian federal army started an operation to take control of Grozny. During the confrontation between the Federal forces and the Chechen separatists, serious human rights violations occurred. Several cases concerning violations of fundamental rights, in and around the city, have been brought before the European Court of Human Rights against Russia. The lawsuits concerned in particular physical integrity issues. This study provides some insights on the jurisprudence of the European Court on Human Rights in order to ascertain the adequacy of the mechanism of protection provided by the …


Totalitarianism: The Case Of Turkmenistan, Hayden Gore Jan 2007

Totalitarianism: The Case Of Turkmenistan, Hayden Gore

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Saparmurat Niyazov, the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan and self-styled “Turkmenbashi” (Father of All Turkmen), became the country’s first president, quickly fashioning Turkmenistan into one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Declared president-for-life after a dubious parliamentary election in which he selected all of the candidates, Niyazov has created a Stalinistic personality cult to glorify his image and to solidify his control over the state. His “reforms” have outlawed political dissent, marginalized ethnic and religious minorities, gutted the public health system, and enforced a campaign …


The Roma: During And After Communism, Florinda Lucero, Jill Collum Jan 2007

The Roma: During And After Communism, Florinda Lucero, Jill Collum

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Roma are an interconnected ethnic and cultural group that migrated out of India more than ten centuries ago. In the Czech Republic, they may have been present since the 15th century. Although relations within Czech lands began honorably, they quickly disintegrated into enmity and within a century Czechs could kill the Roma with impunity. Legislation restricting Roma movement came about in 1927 with Law 117: the “Law on Wandering Gypsies,” which stated that the Roma were now required to seek permission to stay overnight in any given location. In the run-up to World War II, parallel restrictions to those …


Nuclear Weapons Diplomacy: Russian Victories And United States Defeats In The Post Cold War Era, Ibpp Editor Apr 2000

Nuclear Weapons Diplomacy: Russian Victories And United States Defeats In The Post Cold War Era, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes the status and dynamics of the latest nuclear weapons diplomacy between the United States and Russia.


New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, The Siberian City Of Science, Paul R. Josephson Jan 1997

New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, The Siberian City Of Science, Paul R. Josephson

Faculty Books

In 1958 construction began on Akademgorodok, a scientific utopian community modeled after Francis Bacon's vision of a "New Atlantis." The city, carved out of a Siberian forest 2,500 miles east of Moscow, was formed by Soviet scientists with Khrushchev's full support. They believed that their rational science, liberated from ideological and economic constraints, would help their country surpass the West in all fields. In a lively history of this city, a symbol of de-Stalinization, Paul Josephson offers the most complete analysis available of the reasons behind the successes and failures of Soviet science--from advances in nuclear physics to politically induced …