Marietta Shaginian’s Soviet production novel, Hydrocentral (Gidrotsentral’), represents a case of canonical limbo. Without exception, the novel is listed as a Soviet literary classic in reference works and compendia of Russian literature since the time of its publication in 1931 up to the present day, and yet its fame as an exemplary work of socialist realism (the officially mandated artistic and literary method established by the Soviet government in 1934) was extremely short-lived. This dissertation attempts to explain the reasons for the novel’s “in-between” status as a Soviet “classic” work of literature, but not an exemplar of socialist realism. Although Hydrocentral was published three years prior to the adoption of socialist realism, this dissertation argues that there is little doubt that Hydrocentral was one of a handful of Soviet literary works contributing to the formulation of its central tenets. Per the official definition, socialist realism “demands from the artist the truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. At the same time, truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideologically remolding and educating [the working people] in the spirit of socialism.” Shaginian’s novel did, in fact, fulfill all the official requirements of socialist realism: it is a concrete, historically-grounded portrayal of life in rural Armenia at the inception of the first Five-Year Plan (1928-1932) in which objective reality (bytie) is characterized as unceasing dialectical movement. As a paean to inspired, creative socialist labor, Hydrocentral was also written with the express purpose of inculcating a socialist work ethic in Soviet citizens. Part I of this dissertation offers a structural explanation of the novel’s limbo status by demonstrating how the principle of multiplicity undergirds the novel’s structure at every level. Shaginian uses two types of multiplicity, conventional, as in artistic, not true-to-life (uslovnaia) and real, everyday (bytovaia) multiplicity, combining them in a way that achieves Shaginian’s to achieve unique vision of objective reality (bytie) as unceasing dialectical development. Part II of the dissertation demonstrates how the nature of this objective reality (bytie) has its philosophical underpinnings in German Idealism as espoused by Hegel and Goethe, as well as in the dialectical materialism of Karl Marx. At the phenomenological level, Hydrocentral is, a Marxist, materialist philosophical overlay that conceals deeper Idealist – and even Modernist – epistemological undercurrents.

This thesis explores the ways in which the Holocaust experiences and memories of Roma communities in post-Socialist Ukraine and Russia have been both remembered and forgotten. In these nations, the Porraimos, meaning the “Great Devouring” in some Romani dialects, has been largely silenced by the politics of national memory, and by the societal discrimination and ostracization of Roma communities. While Ukraine has made strides towards memorializing Porraimos in the last few decades, the Russian state has yet to do the same. I question how experiences of the Porraimos fit into Holocaust memory in these nations, why the memorialization of the Porraimos is important, what the relationship between communal and public memory is, and lastly, how communal Roma memory is instrumental in reshaping the public memory of the Holocaust. I approach these questions through a comparative, interdisciplinary framework that combines historical analysis, interviews with two Russian Roma individuals from St. Petersburg Russia, an overview of existing literature and film that focus on the Porraimos, and a survey of the memorials for Roma victims in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. Using these methods, I determine how the Porraimos fits into political and cultural memory in these nations, and what the future of Porraimos memory might look like. / Graduate

Recently Scholars of design history began to recognize the phenomenon of Socialist Modernism, the return to modernist aesthetics to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the thaw, the disavowal of Stalinist policies by Nikita Khrushchev after the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party in February of 1956 and the resulting turn away from Socialist Realism, a historicist method in architecture that expressed socialist values, which the Stalinist favored. Scholars of art and design argued that Socialist Modernism in Poland constituted an affirmation of the party’s authority and that of the political system because designers who practiced it focused on abstract form and technological experiments. Unlike the modernism of the early 20th century, which followed a utopian ideology to ensure universal well being through art and design, it focused on the aesthetics of elementary form. However, based on this research, I investigated the journal Projekt of the main state-sponsored publisher in the years, 1956-1970. I have found that its contributors practiced a pragmatic modernism. Although they focused on technological experiments and utilized abstract form, failing to engage in politics, the designers that surrounded Projekt attempted to create user center design that fostered the well being of man, avant-garde values that the 1920s and 1930s functional modernist groups of Central and Eastern advocated. Therefore, following a period of Socialist Realism (1948-1956) in Poland, Projekt advocated for avant-garde values in design while ignoring the political situation, therefore fulfilling a pragmatic site in which it tolerated the authoritarian party, but argued for user based, socially conscious design that connected it to like minded designers in the west.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1966. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is a study of the Slovenian multi-disciplinary collective the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst), with particular focus on the music group Laibach. This thesis interrogates how Laibach and the NSK operate as a nexus between Eastern Europe and the West through the ritualised staging of ideology as a mechanism of power. This research addresses the wider issue of Eastern European aesthetic discourse in the context of hegemonic Western aesthetic discourse. Research involved an analysis of Laibach and the NSK’s prime aesthetic strategy, Retrogardism, in the context of Western aesthetic discourse. This required an analysis of diverse fields such as the historic avant-garde, European history, critical theory, cultural activism, and Performance Art. Comparisons with activist, popular music and performance groups were drawn, and a survey of Laibach’s audience undertaken as part of an analysis of Laibach’s interpellative qualities in the West. This research was conducted within a Performance Art framework, and reference made to current Performance Art praxis. Research revealed the dominance of Western aesthetic discourse and how this has resulted in an increased autonomy of Eastern European aesthetic discourse in a post-Socialist context. Laibach and the NSK are intrinsic to this discursive field, and effective engagement with Laibach is only possible within the discourse of this Eastern European autonomy. A study of Western reportage of Laibach was conducted, which demonstrated a failure of the West to engage with the complexity in the Laibach and NSK performative spectacle. It was found that this complexity is Laibach’s dominant interpellative quality. Laibach and the NSK articulate the dialectic between Eastern Europe and the West as both a point of communication and text for interpretation. Laibach and the NSK establish this point of nexus as one achieved by a process of non-alignment with any geo-political, temporal, aesthetic or ideological determinants. In this way they function as a site of resistance to late-capitalism, which has assimilated conventional forms of counter-cultural challenge. In this way Laibach and the NSK’s Performance Art contrasts with Western Performance Art discourse.

L’internationalisme socialiste, doctrine prônant l'union et la solidarité des peuples par-delà les frontières, est un marqueur identitaire du socialisme du premier comme du second vingtième siècle. Après sa refondation au congrès d’Épinay en 1971, le nouveau Parti socialiste français (PS), dirigé par François Mitterrand, adhère à l’Internationale socialiste et annonce vouloir construire un « nouvel internationalisme ». C’est sous ce nom qu’il mène sa politique internationale durant une décennie charnière, marquée par la poursuite de la Guerre froide, l’accélération de la mondialisation économique, l’internationalisation croissante de la politique, et la conclusion d’un programme commun avec le Parti communiste français et le Mouvement des radicaux de gauche. Au terme de dix ans de montée en puissance du PS, F. Mitterrand est élu Président de la République française en mai 1981. Étudier la politique internationale et l'internationalisme du PS durant cette décennie clé, c’est ainsi éclairer l’articulation politique des échelles nationale et internationale dans un monde plus globalisé et c’est appréhender le tournant idéologique et politique de la gauche sous un angle nouveau. Dans cette thèse, on analyse ainsi dans une première partie la nature et la place de la notion d'internationalisme dans la culture, la doctrine et l’identité du PS. Puis dans un second temps, on s’intéresse aux pratiques internationales du PS, à ce qui caractérise sa diplomatie à toutes les échelles impliquées. En analysant la vision du monde et l’action internationale d’un groupe politique particulier, cette thèse cherche ainsi à questionner les bases sur lesquelles se sont construites la diplomatie et la société politique mondiales au moment même de l'approfondissement de la mondialisation / The socialist internationalism is a doctrine advocating the union and the solidarity between the peoples and beyond the borders. It is an identity marker of the socialism of the whole twentieth century, not only of its beginning. After the congress of Épinay in 1971, the new French Socialist Party (PS) supervised by François Mitterrand adheres to the Socialist International and announces its will to shape a "new internationalism". The French socialists lead their international policy following this slogan, for a pivotal decade marked by the pursuit of the Cold War, the acceleration of the economic globalization, the increasing internationalization of politics, and the conclusion of a common program with the French communist Party and the “Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche”. After ten years of growing importance for the PS, F. Mitterrand is elected President of the French Republic in May 1981. Studying the international policy and the internationalism of the PS during this key decade enables to inform the political articulation of the national and international scales in a more globalized world. It is a way to understand the ideological and political turning point of the left under a new angle. To do so in this thesis, we analyze in a first part the nature and the place of the notion of internationalism in the culture, the doctrine and the identity of the PS. In a second part, we analyze the international practices of the PS, what characterizes its diplomacy on all the involved scales. By analyzing the vision of the world and the international action of a particular political group, this thesis finally tries to question the bases of global diplomacy and of a new global society at the time of the deepening of globalization / L'internazionalismo socialista, dottrina che esalta l'unione e la solidarietà fra i popoli, rappresenta una caratteristica identitaria del socialismo dell'inizio attraverso l’intero ventesimo secolo. A seguito della sua rifondazione al congresso di Épinay nel 1971, il nuovo Partito socialista francese (PS), sotto la direzione di François Mitterrand, aderisce all'Internazionale socialista ed annuncia di voler costruire un "nuovo internazionalismo". Sarà questo slogan che condurrà la sua politica internazionale durante un decennio contrassegnato dalla continuazione della Guerra fredda, l'accelerazione della mondializzazione economica, l'internazionalizzazione crescente della politica, e la conclusione di un programma comune col Partito comunista francese ed il Movimento dei radicali di sinistra. Sull’onda di un crescente consenso ingenerato nei dieci anni precedenti, F. Mitterrand viene eletto Presidente della Repubblica francese nel maggio del 1981. Studiare l’evoluzione della politica internazionale e dell'internazionalismo del PS durante questo decennio, significa analizzare l’interazione fra politiche nazionali ed internazionali in un contesto sempre più globalizzato ed osservare, sotto una prospettiva differente, il mutamento ideologico e politico della sinistra. La prima parte di questa tesi, si sofferma pertanto sulla natura e la collocazione della nozione di internazionalismo nella cultura, nella dottrina e nell'identità del PS. La seconda parte si inoltra nello studio delle pratiche internazionali e diplomatiche del PS a tutti livelli. Attraverso l’esegesi “della visione del mondo” e dell'azione internazionale di un gruppo politico particolare, questa tesi si interroga sulle basi fondanti la diplomazia e le società politiche mondiali al sopraggiungere della mondializzazione.

Constructed in successive stages beginning in 1935, the Moscow metro was designed to be the foremost transportation system in Stalinist Moscow as well as a symbol of socialist might and a metonym for the future socialist society. Soviet officials heralded the metro as an underground palace promoting the values of socialism, and the artwork therein was meant to reflect these values. When Sverdlov Square station opened in 1938, it was decorated with bas-sculptures in the newly sanctioned socialist realist style; the artist, Natalia Danko, chose to depict pairs of male and female folk dancers from seven of the largest nationalities of the Soviet Union. Her sculptures celebrated an idealized view of folk culture that sought to glorify the Soviet state by reflecting ideals such as the joy of every day life and the friendship of the peoples. This thesis employs semiotics to reveal the ambiguity with which viewers may have read these signs, and to demonstrate the polyvalent nature of artistic production. Semiotic theory is useful in order to show how the official discourse of Socialist Realism could be both contested and reinforced through public art. The thesis contends that the Moscow metro, one of the superlative Soviet projects of the 1930s, can be understood as an ambiguous space where meaning was open to diverse interpretations.

Constructed in successive stages beginning in 1935, the Moscow metro was designed to be the foremost transportation system in Stalinist Moscow as well as a symbol of socialist might and a metonym for the future socialist society. Soviet officials heralded the metro as an underground palace promoting the values of socialism, and the artwork therein was meant to reflect these values. When Sverdlov Square station opened in 1938, it was decorated with bas-sculptures in the newly sanctioned socialist realist style; the artist, Natalia Danko, chose to depict pairs of male and female folk dancers from seven of the largest nationalities of the Soviet Union. Her sculptures celebrated an idealized view of folk culture that sought to glorify the Soviet state by reflecting ideals such as the joy of every day life and the friendship of the peoples. This thesis employs semiotics to reveal the ambiguity with which viewers may have read these signs, and to demonstrate the polyvalent nature of artistic production. Semiotic theory is useful in order to show how the official discourse of Socialist Realism could be both contested and reinforced through public art. The thesis contends that the Moscow metro, one of the superlative Soviet projects of the 1930s, can be understood as an ambiguous space where meaning was open to diverse interpretations.

This study aims at providing a reading of the first chapter of Karl Marx&lsquo / s Capital Volume One titled

Der Beitrag beleuchtet verschiedene vornationalsozialistische Denkmuster in Eugenik und Psychiatrie als Schrittmacher wissenschaftlicher Entmenschlichung und politischer Massentötung nach 1933. / The article discusses various pre-National Socialist paradigms in eugenics and psychiatry in their role as catalysts for scientific dehumanisation and political mass homicide after 1933.