This thesis examines factors that underscored higher education reforms in Central and Eastern Europe during the transition period from 1990 to 2005. The study explores higher education reforms in three national settings – Hungary, Romania and the Republic of Moldova, and presents a detailed analysis of the Moldovan case. Rooted in critical approaches to development, transition reforms and policy analysis in higher education, it addresses the new realities of global capitalism, inequitable distribution of power between the industrialized nations and the rest of the world, and the ways in which this power distribution impacts higher education systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Historical analyses, a qualitative cross-national analysis of HE systems in three nations, and interviews with Moldovan higher education policymakers provided rich data on higher education reforms in the region and selected nations. Higher education evolved from institutions serving very select elite in the Middle Ages to universities driving modernization in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, and to diverse institutional types - universities, colleges, institutes - underscoring the massification of higher education after WWII. Policies pursued by Hungarian, Romanian and Moldovan leaders to expand higher education were informed by the national socio-economic, political and demographic contexts, the dominant global development agenda, and international institutional practices. The capacity of national leaders to carry out higher education reforms was limited by the colonial and post-colonial relationships that were established over centuries between each of these nations and stronger regional powers, such as the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires, the Soviet Union, and the European Union. Major regional powers had a significant role in the formation of nation states, educational institutions and higher education politics. At the same time, national elites used language and ethnic policies to shape social and higher education developments and build national identities. By bringing an international perspective to the analysis of reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, by focusing on Hungary, Romania and Moldova, and by drawing on critical theory and post-colonial studies, this research study contributes to the international scholarly discussion of higher education and development reforms, enriches methodological developments in the field of higher education, and advances the discourse of comparative higher education.

After the Bolshevik assumption of power in 1917, the arguably much more difficult task of creating a revolutionary society began. In 1919, to ensure Russian women supported the Communist party, the Zhenotdel, or women’s department, was established. Its aim was propagating the Communist party’s message through local branches attached to party committees at every level of the hierarchy. This dissertation is an analysis of the Communist party’s Zhenotdel in Petrograd/ Leningrad during the 1920s. Most Western Zhenotdel histories were written in the pre-archival era, and this is the first study to extensively utilize material in the former Leningrad party archive, TsGAIPD SPb. Both the quality and quantity of Zhenotdel fonds is superior at St.Peterburg’s TsGAIPD SPb than Moscow’s RGASPI. While most scholars have used Moscow-centric journals like "Kommunistka", "Krest’ianka" and "Rabotnitsa", this study has thoroughly utilized the Leningrad Zhenotdel journal "Rabotnitsa i krest’ianka" and a rich and extensive collection of Zhenotdel questionnaires. Women’s speeches from Zhenotdel conferences, as well as factory and field reports, have also been folded into the dissertation’s five chapters on: organizational issues, the unemployed, housewives and prostitutes, peasants, and workers. Fundamentally, this dissertation argues that how Zhenotdel functioned at the local level revealed that the organization as a whole was riven with multiple and conflicting tensions. Zhenotdel was unworkable. Zhenotdel’s broad goals were impeded because activists lacked financial and jurisdictional autonomy, faced party ambivalence and hostility, and operated largely with volunteers. Paradoxically, these volunteer delegates were “interns,” yet they were expected to model exemplary behaviour. With limited resources, delegates were also expected to fulfil an ever-expanding list of tasks. In addition, Zhenotdel’s extensive use of unpaid housewife delegates in the 1920s anticipated the wife-activist movement of voluntary social service work in the middle to late 1930s. There were competing visions for NEP society, and Zhenotdel officials were largely unable to negotiate the importance of their organization to other party and state organizations. Overall, this suggests that although the political revolution was successful in the 1920s, there were profound limits to the social and cultural revolution in this era.

After the Bolshevik assumption of power in 1917, the arguably much more difficult task of creating a revolutionary society began. In 1919, to ensure Russian women supported the Communist party, the Zhenotdel, or women’s department, was established. Its aim was propagating the Communist party’s message through local branches attached to party committees at every level of the hierarchy. This dissertation is an analysis of the Communist party’s Zhenotdel in Petrograd/ Leningrad during the 1920s. Most Western Zhenotdel histories were written in the pre-archival era, and this is the first study to extensively utilize material in the former Leningrad party archive, TsGAIPD SPb. Both the quality and quantity of Zhenotdel fonds is superior at St.Peterburg’s TsGAIPD SPb than Moscow’s RGASPI. While most scholars have used Moscow-centric journals like "Kommunistka", "Krest’ianka" and "Rabotnitsa", this study has thoroughly utilized the Leningrad Zhenotdel journal "Rabotnitsa i krest’ianka" and a rich and extensive collection of Zhenotdel questionnaires. Women’s speeches from Zhenotdel conferences, as well as factory and field reports, have also been folded into the dissertation’s five chapters on: organizational issues, the unemployed, housewives and prostitutes, peasants, and workers. Fundamentally, this dissertation argues that how Zhenotdel functioned at the local level revealed that the organization as a whole was riven with multiple and conflicting tensions. Zhenotdel was unworkable. Zhenotdel’s broad goals were impeded because activists lacked financial and jurisdictional autonomy, faced party ambivalence and hostility, and operated largely with volunteers. Paradoxically, these volunteer delegates were “interns,” yet they were expected to model exemplary behaviour. With limited resources, delegates were also expected to fulfil an ever-expanding list of tasks. In addition, Zhenotdel’s extensive use of unpaid housewife delegates in the 1920s anticipated the wife-activist movement of voluntary social service work in the middle to late 1930s. There were competing visions for NEP society, and Zhenotdel officials were largely unable to negotiate the importance of their organization to other party and state organizations. Overall, this suggests that although the political revolution was successful in the 1920s, there were profound limits to the social and cultural revolution in this era.

The Making of Soviet Chernivtsi: National “Reunification,” World War II, and the Fate of Jewish Czernowitz in Postwar Ukraine Doctor of Philosophy Svitlana Frunchak Graduate Department of History University of Toronto 2014 Abstract This dissertation revisits the meaning of Soviet expansion and sovietization during and after World War II, the effects of the war on a multiethnic Central-Eastern European city, and the postwar construction of a national identity. One of several multiethnic cities acquired by the USSR in the course of World War II, modern pre-Soviet Chernivtsi can be best characterized as a Jewish-German city dominated by acculturated Jews until the outbreak of World War II. Yet Chernivtsi emerged from the war, the Holocaust, and Soviet reconstruction as an almost homogeneous Ukrainian city that allegedly had always longed for reunification with its Slavic brethren. Focusing on the late Stalinist period (1940–1953) but covering earlier (1774–1940) and later (1953–present) periods, this study explores the relationship between the ideas behind the incorporation; the lived experience of the incorporation; and the historical memory of the city’s distant and recent past. Central to this dissertation is the fate of the Jewish residents of Czernowitz-Chernivtsi. This community was diminished from an influential plurality to about one percent of the city’s population whose past was marginalized in local historical memory. This study demonstrates a multifaceted local experience of the war which was all but silenced by the dominant Soviet Ukrainian myth of the Great Patriotic War and the “reunification of all Ukrainian lands.” When the authors of the official Soviet historical and cultural narratives represented Stalin’s annexation as the “reunification” of Ukraine, they in fact constructed and popularized a new concept of “historical Ukrainian lands.” This concept—a blueprint for the Soviet colonization of the western borderlands in the name of the Ukrainian nation—tied ethnically defined Ukrainian culture to a strictly delineated national territory. Applied to the new borderlands and particularly to their urban centres characterized by cultural diversity, this policy served to legitimize the marginalization and, in several cases, the violent displacement of ethnic minorities, bringing to an end Jewish Czernowitz.

This thesis examines factors that underscored higher education reforms in Central and Eastern Europe during the transition period from 1990 to 2005. The study explores higher education reforms in three national settings – Hungary, Romania and the Republic of Moldova, and presents a detailed analysis of the Moldovan case. Rooted in critical approaches to development, transition reforms and policy analysis in higher education, it addresses the new realities of global capitalism, inequitable distribution of power between the industrialized nations and the rest of the world, and the ways in which this power distribution impacts higher education systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Historical analyses, a qualitative cross-national analysis of HE systems in three nations, and interviews with Moldovan higher education policymakers provided rich data on higher education reforms in the region and selected nations. Higher education evolved from institutions serving very select elite in the Middle Ages to universities driving modernization in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, and to diverse institutional types - universities, colleges, institutes - underscoring the massification of higher education after WWII. Policies pursued by Hungarian, Romanian and Moldovan leaders to expand higher education were informed by the national socio-economic, political and demographic contexts, the dominant global development agenda, and international institutional practices. The capacity of national leaders to carry out higher education reforms was limited by the colonial and post-colonial relationships that were established over centuries between each of these nations and stronger regional powers, such as the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires, the Soviet Union, and the European Union. Major regional powers had a significant role in the formation of nation states, educational institutions and higher education politics. At the same time, national elites used language and ethnic policies to shape social and higher education developments and build national identities. By bringing an international perspective to the analysis of reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, by focusing on Hungary, Romania and Moldova, and by drawing on critical theory and post-colonial studies, this research study contributes to the international scholarly discussion of higher education and development reforms, enriches methodological developments in the field of higher education, and advances the discourse of comparative higher education.

This dissertation is about American Red Cross and YMCA work in revolutionary and civil war Russia. It focuses on the most significant phases of these organizations’ efforts in terms of the numbers of personnel involved and the funds expended: Moscow and Petrograd, 1917–18; northern Russia during the Allied military intervention, 1918–19; and Siberia and the Russian Far East, from 1918 through the early 1920s. By drawing on dozens of often underused archival collections this study is able to discuss these “constructive efforts” in much fuller detail than have existing works. The activities of the Americans who worked in Russia, rather than those who made policy from afar, are of primary interest. The concern here, beyond the what, where, and who, is why: Why did American relief or social service work occur? The answers, of which there are several, include a desire to provide assistance to suffering populations. But the humanitarian impulse was often not the one that carried the day when decisions about policy and practice were taken. Military concerns were important, especially while the Great War still raged on the western front, and while Allied and American soldiers fought Russian Bolsheviks. American relief workers also saw themselves as contributing directly to relations between Russia and Russians on the one hand, and the United States, the Allies, and the American people on the other. They were moved to carry out their work because they saw the importance of it for the present and future of relations between the two countries. Americans in Russia also took advantage of the presence of soldiers, civilian refugees, and former prisoners of war from a variety of European countries to spread the good word about all things American. Ultimately, Americans viewed revolutionary Russia through the lens of modernization. With American help, the future could be bright. With the right leadership in place to oversee their education, honest, hardworking, and intellectually curious peasants (as they were described by contemporary observers) could be turned into modern citizens. The Russian project failed to achieve its promise, but for a time Americans retained their optimism about Russia’s future.

This dissertation is about American Red Cross and YMCA work in revolutionary and civil war Russia. It focuses on the most significant phases of these organizations’ efforts in terms of the numbers of personnel involved and the funds expended: Moscow and Petrograd, 1917–18; northern Russia during the Allied military intervention, 1918–19; and Siberia and the Russian Far East, from 1918 through the early 1920s. By drawing on dozens of often underused archival collections this study is able to discuss these “constructive efforts” in much fuller detail than have existing works. The activities of the Americans who worked in Russia, rather than those who made policy from afar, are of primary interest. The concern here, beyond the what, where, and who, is why: Why did American relief or social service work occur? The answers, of which there are several, include a desire to provide assistance to suffering populations. But the humanitarian impulse was often not the one that carried the day when decisions about policy and practice were taken. Military concerns were important, especially while the Great War still raged on the western front, and while Allied and American soldiers fought Russian Bolsheviks. American relief workers also saw themselves as contributing directly to relations between Russia and Russians on the one hand, and the United States, the Allies, and the American people on the other. They were moved to carry out their work because they saw the importance of it for the present and future of relations between the two countries. Americans in Russia also took advantage of the presence of soldiers, civilian refugees, and former prisoners of war from a variety of European countries to spread the good word about all things American. Ultimately, Americans viewed revolutionary Russia through the lens of modernization. With American help, the future could be bright. With the right leadership in place to oversee their education, honest, hardworking, and intellectually curious peasants (as they were described by contemporary observers) could be turned into modern citizens. The Russian project failed to achieve its promise, but for a time Americans retained their optimism about Russia’s future.

No description available.

En 1917, les Bolcheviks prennent le pouvoir en Russie, répudient la dette extérieure, nationalisent les entreprises privées et imposent un début de gestion soviétique à l’économie. La France, dont les liens économiques avec la Russie ont été largement renforcés durant les trois décennies d’avant-guerre, voit ses immenses avoirs dans l’ancien Empire compromis. Les milieux privés français, qui sont les plus lésés parmi ceux des puissances alliées, réagissent fortement à ce changement de régime. Ce mémoire s’intéresse à ces milieux d’affaires et cherche à comprendre comment ils réagissent à la prise de pouvoir soviétique. Jouent-ils un rôle dans l’évolution du processus décisionnel vers l’intervention militaire? Ont-ils un impact sur le terrain en Russie? Comment subissent-ils l’échec final des efforts français? Nous démontrons que le facteur économique est central dans l’adoption d’une politique interventionniste. Nous étudions également comment le gouvernement cherche à soutenir les milieux privés discrètement, mais les utilise surtout pour avancer ses propres intérêts en Russie. Enfin, nous démontrons que l’échec des milieux privés à protéger leurs intérêts a de nombreuses causes communes avec l’échec de l’intervention militaire. / In 1917, the Bolshevik party seized power in Russia, repudiated state debt, nationalized private enterprises and imposed early forms of Soviet management to the economy. France, whose economic ties with Russia had largely grown during the three previous decades, saw her huge investments in the country compromised. The French private sector, by far the most affected of all Allied powers, reacted strongly to this regime change. This memoir focuses on the subsequent actions of the private sector, and seeks to understand how they reacted to the Bolshevik’s coming to power. Did they play a role in the process of decision-making towards military intervention? Did they have any impact on the ground in Russia? How did they react to the ultimate failure of the intervention and the loss of their assets? We demonstrate that the economic factor was central in the adoption of an interventionist policy. We also examine how the French government discreetly tried to support the private sector, but mostly used it to advance its own interests in Russia. Finally, we demonstrate that the failure of the private sector to defend its interests has many common causes with the failure of the military intervention itself.

Cette thèse porte sur les changements intervenus en Asie centrale et au Kirghizstan au XXème siècle et vise à s’inscrire dans le cadre plus large des travaux portant sur la modernisation et la démodernisation. Cette région est restée en marge des développements économiques et sociaux liés à la révolution industrielle et à la globalisation jusqu’au début du XXème siècle. Le développement des concepts de modernisation puis de démodernisation sont liés aux développements économiques et sociaux. L’avènement de l’économie-monde, la concurrence entre les États-Unis d’Amérique et l’Union soviétique et la multiplication du nombre d’États ont fait des modèles de développement un enjeu crucial de géopolitique mondial. Dans cette perspective, cette thèse propose d’analyser comment le rattachement à l’Empire russe mais surtout à l’Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques (URSS) a considérablement modifié les structures économiques et sociales, la culture et les modes de vie de la population en Asie centrale. Cette région du monde a été modernisée selon les préceptes soviétiques et en cela, elle présente un cas d’étude utile tant l’Asie centrale, ses populations et sa culture étaient singulières au regard du reste de l’URSS. Le démantèlement de l’Union soviétique a provoqué l’indépendance des quinze républiques qui la constituaient. Dans une région ayant connu des avancées fulgurantes dans des domaines tels que la santé et l’éducation, de nombreuses dynamiques contraires vont pourtant apparaître dans les années 1990 et 2000. Les conditions d’accès à l’indépendance et les choix politiques effectués par les nouveaux gouvernements vont mener, au Kirghizstan notamment, à une autre révolution, néo-libérale cette fois-ci. Le contraste entre les deux périodes constituent un cas d’étude sur les dynamiques liées à la modernisation et à la démodernisation. Celui-ci soulève des interrogations liées aux choix néolibéraux qui ont été effectués et de leur impact au niveau humain. Finalement, cette thèse illustre aussi la place grandissante qu’occupera l’Asie centrale en raison de son positionnement géographique stratégique tout autant que de son histoire. / This thesis focuses on the changes that occurred in Central Asia and Kyrgyzstan in the twentieth century and is part of a larger body of work on modernization and demodernization. This region remained on the margins of the economic and social developments linked to the industrial revolution and globalization until the beginning of the 20th century. At the level of academic research, the development of the concepts of modernization and demodernization are linked to the economic and social developments that took place throughout the 20th century. The advent of the world economy, the competition between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and the multiplication of the number of states have made development models a crucial issue in world geopolitics. In this perspective, this thesis proposes to analyze how the attachment to the Russian Empire but especially to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) has considerably modified the economic and social structures, the culture and the ways of life of the population in Central Asia. This region of the world was modernized according to Soviet precepts and in this respect it presents a useful case study, as Central Asia, its people and its culture were singular compared to the rest of the USSR. The dismantling of the Soviet Union led to the independence of the fifteen Socialist and Soviet Republics that made it up. From a region that had experienced dazzling advances in areas such as health and education, many opposing dynamics will however appear in the 1990s and 2000s. The conditions of access to independence and the political choices made by the new governments will lead, in Kyrgyzstan in particular, to another revolution, this time neo-liberal. The contrast between the two models and their consequences constitute a case study on the dynamics of modernization and demodernization. It raises questions related to the neoliberal choices that have been made and their impact on the human level. Finally, this thesis also illustrates the growing place that Central Asia will occupy because of its strategic geographical position as well as its history.