This thesis examines the discursive construction of Russian national identity through the 2008 war in Georgia with a focus on how this process was influenced by the Russian leadership’s desire to gain the support of both the domestic and international audiences for its actions outside its borders. These actions involved forceful military intervention, the recognition of the independence of the two Georgian break-away republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the decision to place Russian military troops in the two republics during the aftermath of war. The study critically examines the official Russian discourse, with a focus on particular visions of national identity that this discourse utilized. The study demonstrates how the official discourse in the context of the 2008 war contributed to the construction of Russian national identity and thereby seeks to highlight the performative power of language. By placing considerable focus on the internal dimension of the Russian leadership’s conduct in the international arena, i.e. the consolidation of the national community in the event of war, the thesis contributes to an oft overlooked element of Russian foreign policy initiatives. Consequently, it seeks to challenge the tendency to explain Russian actions with regard to the war as a natural result of a neo-imperialistic identity – a tendency that fails to take into account how national identity can be constructed in its more immediate context. By making use of Rogers Brubaker's concept of nationalism as an event, the study discusses the increased force of nationalism during war and demonstrates how this was clearly the case during the 2008 war in Georgia. The analysis concentrates on three main identity visions within the official Russian discourse. Firstly, it examines how contemporary Russia was constructed as a great power, partly as a response to the claims that it was an imperialist state. Secondly, it discusses the role of certain historical concepts, i.e. the Cold War and the Soviet Union, within the discourse and elaborates upon the act of politicising history. Thirdly, the study analyses the Russian leadership’s protection narrative that emphasised the responsibility to protect Russian citizens and compatriots in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is demonstrated how these different identity visions were intertwined, resulting in a rather contradictory official discourse that speaks to many different audiences simultaneously, while foregrounding the first of the above-mentioned identity visions, namely of Russia as a great power.

yes / The full text of the author's final draft was made available May 2016, at the end of the publisher's embargo.

yes

No description available.

Le Projet GAP ou «South-East Anatolia Development Project » en Turquie est l'un des vastes projets de développement au monde, consistant en la construction de 21 barrages et de 19 centres hydro-électriques sur les fleuves de l'Euphrate et du Tigre. Toutefois, ce projet pose de nombreuses controverses au cours de la dernière décennie tant au niveau national, avec la question kurde, qu'au niveau régional, en raison de l'enjeu du partage de l'eau avec les pays voisins, notamment la Syrie et l'Irak. Néanmoins, ce sujet fut évoqué dans la plupart des cas sous l'angle exclusif de la question conflictuelle kurde. Les objectifs de mon mémoire cherchent à comprendre l’utilisation du projet GAP par le gouvernement turc dans les constructions nationales et politiques de la Turquie de 1930 et 1980 dans un but de souveraineté et puissance nationale. Cette analyse s’effectue dans un cadre plus général de géopolitique et d’histoire politique. En s'appuyant sur des travaux en matière de géopolitique et de puissance, et surtout sur les théories de construction nationale, ce mémoire se penche sur l'évolution du projet GAP, ainsi que sur son instrumentalisation dans la construction nationale de 1930 et la reconstruction politique et nationale de 1980. / The GAP or “South-Eastern Anatolia Development Project” in Turkey is one of the vast development projects in the world, consisting of the construction of 21 dams and 19 hydroelectric centers on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. However, this project posed many controversies during the last decade both at the national level, with the Kurdish question, and at the regional level, because of the issue of sharing water with neighboring countries, notably Syria and Iraq. Nevertheless, this subject was debated in most cases exclusively from the perspective of the Kurdish conflict issue. The objectives of my dissertation are to understand the use of the GAP project by the Turkish government in the national and political constructions of Turkey in 1930 and 1980 with the aim of sovereignty and national power. This analysis is carried out in a more general framework of geopolitics and political history. Drawn on work of geopolitics and power, and especially on theories of national construction, this dissertation focuses mainly on the evolution of the GAP project, as well as its instrumentalization in the national construction of 1930 and the political and national reconstruction of 1980.

Entre 1954 et 1962, la guerre d’indépendance ou d’Algérie, selon que l’on se place du côté de la victoire ou de la défaite, marque durablement plusieurs générations d’artistes internationaux, tout en traversant et bousculant des questionnements esthétiques quant à la représentation de l’innommable. Cette thèse, qui récolte les traces de cette déchirure franco-algérienne au travers du prisme de l’art, révèle l’importance d’un sujet historique, ignoré par l’histoire de l’art, dont les répercussions sur la politique contemporaine de la France sont encore perceptibles. Terreau d’une génération d’artistes en devenir, qui confortera son engagement social et artistique dans les évènements de Mai 68, mais aussi d’artistes de l’hybridité postcoloniale, qui revendiquent une modernité non hiérarchisée et l’écriture d’une histoire du non dit, la guerre d’Algérie revêt des enjeux fondamentaux dans la construction contemporaine de la scène artistique française et algérienne. Or, alors que la prescription historique d’une cinquantaine d’années est maintenant révolue, il semble que les conflits mémoriaux inhérents à cette défaite française continuent à entraver l’écriture et l’exposition sereines d’une séquence historique, qui apparaît pourtant matricielle dans la construction de la France contemporaine. Aussi, cette étude se propose de porter un regard critique sur la place des représentations de cette « non-histoire » dans les institutions muséales françaises et tente alors de mesurer l’impact d’une histoire encore non consensuelle dans la création artistique actuelle, aujourd’hui percutée par des enjeux de mémoire et politique, et qui de fait interroge la notion même d’identité(s). / From 1954 to 1962, the Independence War or Algerian War — depending on whether the story is narrated from the perspective of the victors or the defeated — touched many generations of international artist, while also penetrating and pushing aesthetic questions about representations of the unspeakable. By tracing the scar of this break between France and Algeria through the prism of art, this thesis reveals the importance of a crucial historical moment, hitherto unexamined by art history, which continues to bear upon contemporary politics in France. Offering exploratory themes not only to a generation of budding artists who affirmed their social and artistic commitments during the events of Mai 68, but also to artists from postcolonial world who proclaimed a modernity without hierarchy and the writing of unsaid histories, the Algerian War produced some of the fundamental issues underpinning the contemporary French and Algerian art worlds. With the historic prescription of a fifty years’ deferral now being over, the conflicted memories of the French defeat continue to trouble the undisturbed writing and exhibition of this sequence of historical events, formative key to construction of contemporary France. Consequently, this study proposes a critical examination of the representation of this “non history” in the French museum. In so doing, it estimates the impact of a “non-consensual” history on contemporary artistic practice touched by issues of memory and politics, and which interrogate notions of identity(ies).