This thesis puts forth the premise that the ideas of the Russian director Meyerhold correlate to the ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato. The writer shows that Meyerhold was a theatrical innovator in the sense that he gave Platonic thought a fresh reflection, expressing as he did his philosophic beliefs by means of the medium of the plastic arts and the stage; dialogue, scenic design, lighting techniques, etc., as opposed to the pure philosophic dialogues Plato used. Meyerhold's theatrical contributions arose from an attempt to resolve opposites, often by the creation of paradox, in order to provide the audience with at least a glimpse of a new world view. The writer uses the writings of Plato, and the writings and examples of the staged productions of Meyerhold to prove the aforementioned premise. Using Meyerhold's theory of uslovnyi theatre and Plato's Theory of Ideas, the writer shows that Meyerhold's work, his theatrical innovations, gave dramatic life to Platonic epistemology.

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Even with the end of the Cold War, the question, Were the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an action-reaction arms race? remains important and controversial. The bulk of empirical mathematical arms race research suggests that the US and USSR were not so engaged. Indeed, most such research into the matter suggests that US arms acquisitions were driven overwhelmingly by internal or domestic forces, as were Soviet arms acquisitions. Given the longstanding political, economic and military rivalry, between the US and USSR, the finding that they were not engaged in an arms race is perplexing. This is particularly so with respect to nuclear weapons acquisitions. Orthodox nuclear deterrence theory clearly posits that the attempt by each side to maintain a balance of nuclear forces with the other and hence deter the other from launching a first-strike should result in an action-reaction nuclear arms race. Why, then, does the overwhelming mass of quantitative research suggest that the opposite was true, in practice, in the US-Soviet case? The problem, in part, has been that researchers have been using underspecified mathematical models of action-reaction arms race interaction. The most famous of these models is Richardson’s 1960 action-reaction model. Researchers have long been aware that Richardson’s model is underspecified and as such that it may not be capable of revealing the true nature of US-Soviet military interaction. Since the late 1960s, arms race researchers have attempted to move beyond Richardson’s simple arms race specification. Several new approaches to arms race analysis have subsequently emerged: the game theoretic approach, the economic (stock adjustment) approach, and the expectations (adaptive, extrapolative, and rational) approach. Taken individually, neither of these approaches has, however, yielded much fruit. In this dissertation, the game, stock adjustment, and rational expectations approaches were combined for the first time into a single, more comprehensive, analytical approach and a new action-reaction arms race model was derived, which we have named the GSR Model. In addition, it was argued that a new approach was needed for testing arms race models. Arms races are generally seen as competitions of total armed versus total armed might. Arms race models have, accordingly, been tested against data on states’ annual military expenditures. We argued instead that an arms race is made of several subraces, the object of each subrace being a specific weapons system and a specific counter weapons system, deployed by an opponent and designed to thwart the former’s political and military effect. Models should, then, be tested for each subrace in a given arms race, that is, against data on weapons system-counter weapons system deployment levels. Time frames for the analysis of a given weapons system-counter weapons system competition should be set to accord with the period in which those systems were dominant in the military calculations of the competing states. In effect, we have specified an alternative approach to mathematical arms race analysis, the micro approach to mathematical arms race analysis. The GSR Model was tested against data on annual US and Soviet strategic nuclear warhead deployment levels, — specifically, those onboard ICBMs (1960-71) and submarines (1972-87). The GSR model was also tested against annual US-Soviet aggregate strategic nuclear warhead deployment data (ICBM, SLBM and bomber based totals), 1967-84. Estimates of the GSR model suggest that the US and USSR were in fact engaged in an action-reaction arms race over submarine launched nuclear warheads. Regression analysis also indicates that the US and USSR strongly interacted, asymmetrically, over ICBM based nuclear warheads. There appears to have been no interaction over aggregate warhead deployments. Finally, the implications of these findings for the maintenance of a stable nuclear deterrent were discussed.

In spite of the crucial importance of the Russian front in the outcome of the Second World War, this aspect of the conflict has been studied relatively little in the West since 1945. This omission can be attributed to several factors including linguistic complexity, the difficulty of access to Soviet archives, and the political constraints caused by the ideological climate of the Cold War. Since the time of glasnost' and the collapse of the Soviet block, however, a new era has begun for historians thanks to the release of many documents which had been secret and to the improved ideological climate. / The present work aims to summarise the current situation of the debate in this rapidly expanding field of historiography. Some of the most controversial military, political, and strategic questions are examined, most frequently from a Soviet perspective. These include the Soviet preparations for war and their shortcomings; the German campaign of 1941 and the reasons for its failure; the turning of the tide in 1942-1943, especially the battles of Kursk and Stalingrad; the Yalta conference and the "division of the world"; the role of Stalin and his regime in the "Great Patriotic War"; the human and material losses of the Soviet Union during the conflict; and finally the importance of the Soviet contribution to the victory of the Allies.

This thesis examines the impact of Soviet anti-religious policies on the Muslims of Central Asia from 1917 to 1938. The long struggle of the Bolsheviks to come to the power, their attempts to perpetuate the Russian hegemony in Central Asia, and the reactions of the Central Asian people towards the new regime will all form part of this thesis. Having successfully brought about the revolution, the Bolsheviks faced many challenges. One the famous slogans of the revolution, recognition of each nationality's right of self determination, boomeranged on the Bolsheviks, with the European proletariat deserting from the path of the revolution and proclaiming their own independence. In this situation, the Bolsheviks endeavored to gain the support of the Muslims. The government made many promises to the Muslims but, at the same time, dissolved the Kokand government established by the Muslims, causing Muslium revolts throughout the Central Asian region. The Muslim threat was met with measures of appeasement. The government's promises succeeded in attracting the modernist Muslims to cooperate with the regime. A strategy of "divide and rule" and of indirect attacks on Islam was employed, aiming at the annihilation of Islam. Conservative Muslims continued to vehemently oppose the Soviet regime and its policies. But, given the success of the regime in the civil war, and the lack of unity and the strength among Muslims, the Soviet anti-religious policies in Central Asia succeeded at the institutional level, to do great damage to Islam. However, these policies proved ineffectual in destroying the influence of Islamic teachings on the Muslims of Central Asia.

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava, the originator of the style of Russian bards, was the first to express his nation's disillusionment over the country's political system and government in a new and alternative way. / For this purpose, he used the direct impact of his poetry, a part of which he would sing for audiences, accompanied only by his guitar. This sort of communication between the writer and his interlocutors remained in sharp contrast with the means traditionally used by the official Soviet mass culture. The spreading of guitar poetry was impossible to control by authorities, since for popularization it used not only public gatherings, but also a new piece of technology at the time, tape recorders, a medium brilliantly used by Magnitizdat. / As opposed to Okudzhava's prose, the body of his poetry is largely understudied. One of the possible approaches to his poetic works may be that of classifying them according to their themes. / In the poetry of Bulat Okudzhava, several distinctive thematic categories can be distinguished. The themes that dominated the poet's creative years interpenetrate and overlap one another, as well as provide a reference for his secondary themes. / In the present thesis, the dominant themes will be analyzed from a biographical and historical angle. War will be the first major theme explored. This will be followed by a description of Okudzhava's works dealing with the cult of Stalin and the associated personal tragedy of the author, who witnessed the execution of his father and deportation of his mother. Subsequently, the themes of work, creator and creativity, poet and poetry, music and painting will be discussed. Other themes typical for Okudzhava are those of the city (especially Moscow), the street (especially the Arbat), nature, folklore, and Georgia. The body of the present thesis will conclude with the description of the basic thrusts of Okudzhava's ethics and philosophy, that are most clearly expressed in his "philosophical" verses (concerning belief, hope, love, destiny, women, friends, and man's inner world). / Since Okudzhava's poetry is heavily grounded in the historical context of the Stalin and post-Stalin era and is an alternative voice to what was imposed by official literature, it is natural and valuable to see it against the background of the Socialist Realist canon of Soviet state-controlled literary production.

In this paper I will critically reflect upon an intercultural experience connected with appearance, dress, and the different mutual perceptions of 'others' in public space in current Moscow and Vienna. I will construe this experience as fundamentally different attitudes towards informal behaviour, appearance and gender ambivalence. One of the main causes of this situation I have located in the 1960s, a period of anti-authoritarian subcultural upheaval in the Soviet Union as well as 'the West'. The very different social, economic and political contexts of their emergence and their further ('socialist' vs. capitalist) trajectories are, as I will argue, at the root of the perceptions and connotations of casual wear and behaviour in the public spaces of present-day Moscow and Vienna.(author´s abstract) / Series: WU Online Papers in International Business Communication / Series One: Intercultural Communication and Language Learning

The following essay addresses Alexandr Volko's adaption and appropriation of L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz". Exceedingly popular throughthout the Easern bloc, Volkov's novels have endeared a magical setting and cast of characters to readers who rarely knew of their American origins. I discuss the Wizard's 'travels' throught the Iron Curtain as an incidence of cultural exchange at once motivated by and subverting Cold War cultural politics. I suggest that it is not so much the changes to which Baum's narrative universe has been subjected on its way from West to East that makes this case study remarkable but the ways in wich the two Wizards have been interpreted to fit contestable notions of 'American' and 'Soviet' culture.

This thesis examines how and under what influences communities of Islamic faith have developed in post-Soviet Russia. My arguments are based on research conducted in Astrakhan, Russia in the summer of 2009. Astrakhan is the capital of Astrakhan Oblast in southwest Russia and has a reputation for being a multi-confessional and multi-ethnic city. Astrakhan is home to Russians, Tatars, Kazakhs, Kalmyks, and many other nationalities. I draw from interviews and newspaper analysis to examine what the local landscape of Islam looks like in Astrakhan, how has it changed since the collapse of the USSR, and what future trends are emerging. Mosque renovations and demolitions are the center of my analysis. Drawing on scholarship in critical geopolitics and critical geographies of religion, this paper seeks to understand how the Kremlin and other levels of government influence the development of Islam locally within Astrakhan. Interviews are used to study local understandings of the changing forms of Islam in Astrakhan, and to see if locals believe that the state has been supportive to the Islamic community. My research contributes to wider scholarship on the importance of the relationship between the state and local Islamic communities for Islamic nation-building in the Russian Federation.

This thesis examines the role of the Northern Department of the British Foreign Office and its perception of, and attitude towards, the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1953. In these formative years after World War II many assumptions and policies were shaped that proved decisive for years to come. The Northern Department of the Foreign Office was at the centre of British dealings with the Soviet Union after 1945 in an atmosphere of cooling diplomatic relations between both camps. Keeping channels of communications open in order to exploit every opportunity for negotiation and the settlement of post-war issues, officials built up an extensive expertise of Soviet domestic and foreign policy. Their focus on all aspects of Soviet life accessible to them, for example, Soviet domestic and international propaganda, revealed in their view a significant emerging future threat to British interests in Europe and worldwide. This view provided the basis of the analysis of new information and the assessment of the best possible policy options for the British government. The Northern Department tried to exploit those traits of Soviet policy that could persuade the USA and Western Europe to follow British foreign policy initiatives vis-à-vis the Soviet Union in the early Cold War while attempting to balance those weaknesses that could harm this effort. The focus of the Department often varied as a result of Soviet action. Some issues, like the Cominform were of momentary importance while other issues, like the Communist threat and the issue of Western European defence remained on the agenda for many years. A realistic approach to foreign policy allowed officials to exploit and counter-act those Soviet foreign policies seen as most threatening to Britain and those most likely to aid Britain’s recovery of her much desired world role. While the initial optimism after 1945 soon faded and consolidation on both sides was followed by confrontation, officials in London and the embassy in Moscow tried to maintain diplomatic relations to aid Western recovery efforts and support the new foreign policy doctrine of containment. When by the early 1950s entrenchment was speeding up in East and West, the Northern Department nevertheless utilised the available information to support British foreign policy worldwide as well as strengthen the domestic effort to explain the increasing international tension to the British people. Realism on the part of officials, and awareness of the information and options available to them meant that a Britain closely allied to the USA but one that continued to talk to the Kremlin was seen as the best way to achieve a continued world role for Britain and a safe Europe.