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Navigating 'national form' and 'socialist content' in the Great Leader's homeland : Georgian painting and national politics under Stalin, 1921-39Brewin, Jennifer Ellen January 2019 (has links)
This thesis examines the interaction of Georgian painting and national politics in the first two decades of Soviet power in Georgia, 1921-1939, focussing in particular on the period following the consolidation of Stalin's power at the helm of the Communist Party in 1926-7. In the Stalin era, Georgians enjoyed special status among Soviet nations thanks to Georgia's prestige as the place of Stalin's birth. However, Georgians' advanced sense of their national sovereignty and initial hostility towards Bolshevik control following Georgia's Sovietisation in 1921 also resulted in Georgia's uniquely fraught relationship with Soviet power in Moscow in the decades that followed. In light of these circumstances, this thesis explores how and why the experience and activities of Georgian painters between 1926 and 1939 differed from those of other Soviet artists. One of its central arguments is that the experiences of Georgian artists and critics in this period not only differed significantly from those of artists and critics of other republics, but that the uniqueness of their experience was precipitated by a complex network of factors resulting from the interaction of various political imperatives and practical circumstances, including those relating to Soviet national politics. Chapter one of this thesis introduces the key institutions and individuals involved in producing, evaluating and setting the direction of Georgian painting in the 1920s and early 1930s. Chapters two and three show that artists and critics in Georgia as well as commentators in Moscow in the 1920s and 30s were actively engaged in efforts to interpret the Party's demand for 'national form' in Soviet culture and to suggest what that form might entail as regards Georgian painting. However, contradictions inherent in Soviet nationalities policy, which both demanded the active cultivation of cultural difference between Soviet nationalities and eagerly anticipated a time when national distinctions in all spheres would naturally disappear, made it impossible for an appropriate interpretation of 'national form' to be identified. Chapter three, moreover, demonstrates how frequent shifts in Soviet cultural and nationalities policies presented Moscow institutions with a range of practical challenges which ultimately prevented them from reflecting in their exhibitions and publications the contemporary artistic activity taking place in the republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. A key finding of chapters four and five concerns the uniquely significant role that Lavrenty Beria, Stalin's ruthless deputy and the head of the Georgian and Transcaucasian Party organisations, played in differentiating Georgian painters' experiences from those of Soviet artists of other nationalities. Beginning in 1934, Beria employed Georgian painters to produce an exhibition of monumental paintings, opening at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 1937, depicting episodes from his own falsified history of Stalin's role in the revolutionary movement in Transcaucasia. As this thesis shows, the production of the exhibition introduced an unprecedented degree of direct Party supervision over Georgian painting as Beria personally critiqued works by Georgian painters produced on prescribed narrative subjects in a centralised collective studio. As well as representing a major contribution to Stalin's personality cult, the exhibition, which conferred on Georgian painters special responsibility for representing Stalin and his activities, was also a public statement of the special status that the Georgians were now to enjoy, second only to that of the Russians. However, this special status involved both special privileges and special responsibilities. Georgians would enjoy special access to opportunities in Moscow and a special degree of autonomy in local governance, but in return they were required to lead the way in declaring allegiance to the Stalin regime. Chapter six returns to the debate about 'national form' in Georgian painting by examining how the pre-Revolutionary self-taught Georgian painter, Niko Pirosmani, was discussed by cultural commentators in Georgia and Moscow in the 1920s and 30s as a source informing a Soviet or Soviet Georgian canon of painting. It shows that, in addition to presenting views on the suitability of Pirosmani's painting either in terms of its formal or class content, commentators perpetuated and developed a cult of Pirosmani steeped in stereotypes of a Georgian 'national character.' Further, the establishment of this cult during the late 1920s and early 1930s seems to have been a primary reason for the painter's subsequent canonisation in the second half of the 1930s as a 'Great Tradition' of Soviet Georgian culture. It helped to articulate a version of Georgian national identity that was at once familiar and gratifying for Georgians and useful for the Soviet regime. The combined impression of cultural sovereignty embodied in this and other 'Great Traditions' of Soviet Georgian culture and the special status articulated through the 1937 exhibition allowed Georgian nationalism to be aligned, for a time, with support for Stalin and the Soviet regime.
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Sovereignty, Peacekeeping, and the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), Suez 1956-1967: Insiders’ PerspectivesHilmy, Hanny 13 February 2015 (has links)
This research is concerned with the complex and contested relationship between the sovereign prerogatives of states and the international imperative of defusing world conflicts. Due to its historical setting following World War Two, the national vs. international staking of claims was framed within the escalating imperial-nationalist confrontation and the impending “end of empire”, both of which were significantly influenced by the role Israel played in this saga. The research looks at the issue of “decolonization” and the anti-colonial struggle waged under the leadership of Egypt’s President Nasser. The Suez War is analyzed as the historical event that signaled the beginning of the final chapter in the domination of the European empires in the Middle East (sub-Saharan decolonization followed beginning in the early 1960s), and the emergence of the United States as the new major Western power in the Middle East.
The Suez experience highlighted a stubborn contest between the defenders of the concept of “sovereign consent” and the advocates of “International intervention”. Both the deployment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) and its termination were surrounded by controversy and legal-political wrangling. The role of UNEF and UN peacekeeping operations in general framed the development of a new concept for an emerging international human rights law and crisis management. The UNEF experience, moreover, brought into sharp relief the need for a conflict resolution component for any peace operation. International conflict management, and human rights protection are both subject to an increasing interventionist international legal regime. Consequently, the traditional concept of “sovereignty” is facing increasing challenge.
By its very nature, the subject matter of this multi-dimensional research involves historical, political and international legal aspects shaping the research’s content and conclusions. The research utilizes the experience and contributions of several key participants in this pioneering peacekeeping experience. In the last chapter, recommendations are made –based on all the elements covered in the research- to suggest contributions to the evolving UN ground rules for international crisis intervention and management. / Graduate / hilmyh@uvic.ca
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