O desmantelamento da URSS foi um dos processos políticos mais importantes do século XX, tendo sido causado, em grande medida, pelas demandas por independência, oriundas do seu tipo mais importante de entidades federadas, as Repúblicas. Antes da Perestroika eram poucos os especialistas, mesmo dentre os chamados sovietólogos ocidentais, aqueles que arriscariam fazer previsões sobre um possível e iminente colapso, seguido de desintegração, do poderoso Estado soviético, cuja estatura política, militar e demográfica era capaz de rivalizar com os Estados Unidos ao menos desde o término da II Guerra mundial. Neste trabalho apresentamos e analisamos o trabalho de autores ocidentais que chegaram a cogitar a possibilidade de fragmentação política do Estado Soviético, levando em consideração a gravidade da questão etnonacional para a antecipação de um cenário desintegracionista, analisando quais fatores influenciaram no menor ou maior grau de precisão dos cenários prospectivos traçados. / The dismantling of the Soviet Union was one of the most important political pro-cesses of the twentieth century, having been caused, to a large extent, by demands for independence arising from its most important type of federated entities- the Republics. Before perestroika there were few western specialists, even among the so-called \"sovietologists\", who would risk making predictions about a possible and imminent col-lapse, followed by desintegration, of the mighty Soviet State, whose political, military and demographic stature was able to rival the United States at least since the end of World War II. In this paper we present and analyze the work of western authors who have come to consider the possibility of political fragmentation of the Soviet State, taking into ac-count the seriousness of the ethnonational question for the anticipation of a disintegra-tionist scenario, analyzing which factors influenced the lower or greater degree of accu-racy of the prospective scenarios which they designed.

Drawing on the Western feminist tradition to analyze modern childcare advice as part of the "institution of motherhood" (Adrienne Rich), this dissertation explores the role played by the advice literature on childcare in the construction of normative motherhood in Russia from the late Imperial period through Soviet times, from 1890 to 1990. The study focuses on the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy (the OMM) movement, launched by medical professionals at the turn of the twentieth century as a philanthropic project aimed at combating high infant mortality in the country, and follows its transformation after 1917 into the state-sponsored and state-regulated system of medical and economic support for Soviet mothers and children. The fragmented notion of femininity in the Soviet Union, which incorporated both the ideology of women's emancipation (constructed primarily as women's participation in the labor force) and the pronatalist emphasis on women's roles as mothers created a complex interplay between the "emancipatory" and the traditionalist discourses of motherhood in childrearing literature. Due to the uneven character of Russian modernization and the lack of cultural homogeneity between urban and rural populaces, childrearing manuals perpetuated cultural hierarchy between medical specialists and mothers, which resulted in the didacticism of Soviet childrearing advice. Childcare manuals constructed the reader not as a peer, but as, essentially, a student, who needed tutoring and disciplining. The "privatization of the modern" ethos that started to characterize family life in the wake of the housing reform of the 1960s reinforced the notion that mothering was a private and highly personalized experience. This emphasis on the individual resulted in the emergence in the 1970s and in the 1980s of the figure of parent-expert and in the reversal of traditional hierarchical expert-parent framework typical of earlier periods.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed December 13, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 414-443).

Nach wie vor ist es der internationalen Gemeinschaft nicht gelungen, eine Lösung für die afghanische Krise zu präsentieren. Dabei macht die gegenwärtige Situation eine Beendigung des Kriegszustands sowie die Aufnahme von konstruktiven Verhandlungen unerlässlich. Die Genfer Verhandlungen der 1980er Jahre über den Abzug der Sowjetarmee aus Afghanistan könnten hierbei als Vorbild dienen.

Inaug.-diss.--Berlin. / Includes bibliographical references.

Inaug.-diss.--Tübingen. / Lebenslauf. "Schrifttums-nachweis": p. 183-184.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-197).

During the Second World War, with the failure of the German invasion of the Soviet Union to maintain its momentum, large areas of captured Russian territory remained under German Army jurisdiction for the entire duration of the conflict; rather than being turned over to National Socialist civilian administrators. Evidence drawn from the files of two of the military government rear areas (KorOcks) is used in order to consider the institutional response of the Army towards this unanticipated problem. Methodological approaches associated with 'history from below' are combined with orthodox 'history from above' in order to reassess the findings of secondary literature on the topic. Particular consideration is given to primary data which describes the war from the perspective of the German soldiers who conducted policy on the ground. Initially, the controversial historical debate which has developed as to the Wehrmacht's role in the occupied areas is discussed and set against the wider background of the place of the armed forces within the Third Reich. The character and organisation of military government in the Soviet Union is then described so as to indicate the complex and difficult conditions under which the German troops operated. Following on from this, a range of diverse issues are discussed, including economic policy, anti-partisan warfare, the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, army relations with the civilian population, Wehrmacht co-operation with the SS, criminal behaviour amongst the German soldiers, and troop morale and fighting power. A number of highly critical interpretations of Wehrmacht activities are thus re-evaluated; especially those which emphasise the extent to which members of the German armed forces were influenced primarily by ideological considerations. Overall, while full regard is given to the weight of evidence which seeks to demythologise 'apologist' arguments that deny the calculated involvement of the German Army in the racial war of annihilation conducted in the East, equal attention is drawn to the varied responses and conduct of the German troops directly involved in implementing such policies. Accordingly, due regard is also given to the importance of social, socio- psychological and institutional factors in influencing individual and group behaviour within the Third Reich.

Studies of interethnic integration in Central Eastern Europe have sought to account for the impact that institutional settings, structural conditions and elite-level interaction have on the accommodation of and conflict resolution between ethnic groups. Much existing literature has placed particular emphasis on the importance of institutional factors, both domestically and as a result of international pressure. Simultaneously, scholarship on the issue has left out of focus the contributions of non-dominant minority actors to the dynamics of interethnic relations. Where minorities are taken into account, this happens largely in terms of their failure to recognise structural opportunities for their inclusion into majority society. This study analyses interethnic integration in the Central Eastern European context from the perspective of structuration theory. Structuration theory provides a sound theoretical foundation in order to study non-dominant agency and its impact on the structures of integration, owing to its ability to reconcile dichotomies. The thesis comprises a comparative case study of interethnic interaction in Estonia and Slovakia, focusing on the Russian-speaking and the Hungarian minority respectively. A structuration approach is applied to the empirical findings in order to problematise practices of integration and their constraints that lie in the institutional and interaction context of Estonian and Slovak post-Communist society. I argue that although Russian-speakers in Estonia and Hungarians in Slovakia are constrained by institutional environs and majority-dominated structures, minority members actively participate in and shape institution-building and group formation in their interaction with majorities. Minority integration is analysed in terms of the minorities’ co-operation within, counteraction against and formulation of alternatives to the status quo structures of interethnic relations.

The thesis is concerned with the central question of the revolutionary movement: why the methods used by the revolutionaries developed as they did? Specifically, it considers why the method of revoluti,~nary action used by the Southern revolutionaries changed frou; one characterised by a weak interest in propagandising the peasantry to a full-blooded commitment to political terrorism, and why this change took place so early in the 1870' s. The common explanation is that the revolutionaries chose their methods because of extrinsic factors: influence exerted by St.Petersburg and Moscow revolutionaries; the backwardness of the provinces; the lack of response from the peasants; persecution by the government, sparking off a violent response from the hot blooded Southerners. alternatives. The thesis criticises some of these reasons and suggests Underpinning this 'common explanation' for its development is a particular understanding of the wture of the revolutionary movement itself. This understanding is examined in Chapter I since it implicitly denies the possibility of some of the other reasons for the development of the revolutionary movelEent which are advanced 113 ter. Chapter II considers if the Southern revolutionary movement was 'backward' , susceptible to influence from the North, and how this influence coul d ha ve opera ted. ChaptL'r TIl and IV are mainly concerned to examine the composition of the kruzhoks involved in, respectively, propagandist activity amongst the peasants and political tprrorism. Chapter TIl tries to as sess and explain the limited nature of Southern involvement in the 'v narod' movement and to establish the characteristics of those kruzhoks which did or did not participate in it, 1873 - 1876/7. In Chapter IV those revoluti(maries who chose political terrorism are studied. It emerges that a different type of revolutionary was attracted to this method of activity; the supporters of political terrorism were generally likely to be more 'provincial', less well educated etc., than their predecessors. However this does not establish any cau3lil relationship between 'type' of revolutionary and method of acti vi ty, because acti vi ty amongst the peasants and political terrorism dominated the revolutionary movement at different times during the decade under consideration, and so it may have been that the type of revolutionary that was prorr;inent at the end of the seventies and the start of the eighties was unable for some reason to participa,te in rural propagandist activity at the beginning of the seventies. Cons equently, particular attention is pa id in Chapter IV to those revolutionaries who composed the first kruzhoks which turned to political terrorism, and to what they had been doing in the early seventies. Such analysis is of little value for the later kruzhoks since their members had usually been too young in the early seventies to have had the opportunity to go amongst the peasants. Wherever possible, the reasons which these revolutionaries gave for practising political terrorism, rather than propaganda activity amongst the peasantrj, are also examined. Chapter V, VI, and VII look at three areas in which the Southerners were heavily involved: propaganda amongst urban workers, liberal 'society' and Ukrainophilism, and suggest that the revolutionaries were influenced in their choice of revolutionary tactic by the se groups. The thesis is based on an extensive use of memoir material (although little reference has been made to two Southern memoir sources which have been grossly over-exploited), on published documents and on contemporary writings by the revolutionaries in their papers and elsewhere. The originality of the thesi s 1 ies however not so much in the rna terial which sustains it as uiJon its subject and the treatment of that subject. The reasons for the revolutionary movement developing in the South in the way in which it did, over this eleven year period, has not previously been subjected to serious examination. Consequently, a number of those causes which are identified here - the relationship with Ukrainophiles, liberal society, kruzhoks' finances etc., - have also not been scrutinised in detail before. Soviet historians have exardned the leadership of the Chaykovtsy, 'Zemlya i Volya' and the }<;xecutive Committee of 'iJarodnaya Volya', but a systematic longitudinal study - within the severe limits imposed by the sources - of the membership of the kruzhoks which composed the revolutionary movement, is a new approach.