Everyday Belonging in the Post-Soviet Borderlands

Everyday Belonging in the Post-Soviet Borderlands
Author: Alina Jašina-Schäfer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2021-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1793631395

Everyday Belonging in the Post-Soviet Borderlands examines the Russophone communities in peripheral cities adjacent to the Russian borders in Estonia and Kazakhstan. The research adopts a cross-disciplinary, space-sensitive approach that focuses comparatively on individual memories, narratives, and performances. Based on ethnographic examples, this book reconstructs belonging as a complex dialectical relationship between “inclusion” and “exclusion.” This relationship, it is argued, manifests itself through a continuous spiral of boundary construction, appropriation, and transgression among different versions of Estonianness and Kazakhness, Europeanness and Cosmopolitanness, as well as Russianness.

Researching Memory and Identity in Russia and Eastern Europe

Researching Memory and Identity in Russia and Eastern Europe
Author: Jade McGlynn
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2022-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030999149

This book offers a collection of innovative methodological approaches to Memory Studies in Russia and Eastern Europe. Providing insights into the relationship between memory and identity, the twelve chapters provide multidisciplinary analysis of how history is used to reinforce, remould, and reinvent national and group identities. This analysis includes a strong emphasis on interrogating the role of the researcher and the impact of methodology, exploring the field’s most pressing challenges, such as the subjectivity of remembrance, reception versus production of discourse, and the inclusion of marginal perspectives. By focussing on countries in which the past is highly politicised, including Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Russia and the Baltic States, the volume also analyses the diverse – and often conflicting – ways in which historical narratives emerge from these states’ efforts to create new pasts that shape their respective visions of the future, with pressing ramifications across this region and beyond.

Uncovering the Pearl

Uncovering the Pearl
Author: Amos Yong
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2023-09-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1666720887

Asia is by far the largest continent in the world. The global expansion of the church, which emanated from the Middle East (as explored in the first book in the series) moved along various routes to take root in Asia proper. Christianity in Asia is extraordinarily diverse, with very ancient forms of the faith dating to the time of the apostles. The western church will be enlightened by the dynamic, multi-pronged Asian story of Christianity. Asian Christianity is also distinct due to the numerous non-traditional, house, or cell movements found throughout the region. The diversity of Christianity in Asia makes Christians in this region critical for the future of global Christianity.

The Russian-speaking Populations in the Post-Soviet Space

The Russian-speaking Populations in the Post-Soviet Space
Author: Ammon Cheskin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2021-05-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 100033080X

In the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, this volume examines the relationship Russia has with its so-called ‘compatriots abroad’. Based on research from Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Ukraine, the authors examine complex relationships between these individuals, their home states, and the Russian Federation. Russia stands out globally as a leading sponsor of kin-state nationalism, vociferously claiming to defend the interests of its so-called diaspora, especially the tens of millions of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers who reside in the countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. However, this volume shifts focus away from the assertive diaspora politics of the Russian state, towards the actual groups of Russian speakers in the post-Soviet space themselves. In a series of empirically grounded studies, the authors examine complex relationships between ‘Russians’, their home-states and the Russian Federation. Using evidence from Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Ukraine, the findings demonstrate multifaceted levels of belonging and estrangement with spaces associated with Russia and the new, independent states in which Russian speakers live. By focusing on language, media, politics, identity and quotidian interactions, this collection provides a wealth of material to help understand contemporary kin-state policies and their impact on group identities and behaviour. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

Identity and Nation Building in Everyday Post-Socialist Life

Identity and Nation Building in Everyday Post-Socialist Life
Author: Abel Polese
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2017-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351735438

This book explores the function of the “everyday” in the formation, consolidation and performance of national, sub-national and local identities in the former socialist region. Based on extensive original research including fieldwork, the book demonstrates how the study of everyday and mundane practices is a meaningful and useful way of understanding the socio-political processes of identity formation both at the top and bottom level of a state. The book covers a wide range of countries including the Baltic States, Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and considers “everyday” banal practices, including those related to consumption, kinship, embodiment, mobility, music, and the use of objects and artifacts. Overall, the book draws on, and contributes to, theory; and shows how the process of nation-building is not just undertaken by formal actors, such as the state, its institutions and political elites.

Borderlands into Bordered Lands

Borderlands into Bordered Lands
Author: Tatiana
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2014-04-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3838260422

Since 1991, post-Soviet political elites in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus have been engaged in nation- as well as state-building. They have tried to strengthen territorial sovereignty and national security, re-shape collective identities and re-narrate national histories. Former Soviet republics have become new neighbours, partners, and competitors searching for geopolitical identity in the new "Eastern Europe", i.e. the countries left outside the enlarged EU. Old paradigms such as "Eurasia" or "East Slavic civilisation" have been re-invented and politically instrumentalized in the international relations and domestic politics of these countries. At the same time, these old concepts and myths have been contested and challenged by pro-Western elites. Borderlands into Bordered Lands examines the construction of post-Soviet borders and their political, social, and cultural implications. It focuses on the exemplary case of the Ukrainian-Russian border, approaching it as a social construct and a discursive phenomenon. Zhurzhenko shows how the symbolic meanings of and narratives on this border contribute to national identity formation and shape the images of the neighbouring countries as "the Other" thereby shedding new light on the role of border disputes between Ukraine and Russia in bilateral relations, in EU neighbourhood politics and in domestic political conflicts. Zhurzhenko also addresses 'border making' on the regional level, focusing on the cross-border cooperation between Kharkiv and Belgorod and on the dilemmas of a Euroregion 'in absence of Europe': Finally, she reflects the everyday experiences of the residents of near-border villages and shows how national and local identities are performed at, and transformed by, the new border. Borderlands into Bordered Lands was honored by the American Association for Ukrainian Studies as best book 2009/2010 in the field of Ukrainian history, politics, language, literature and culture. For more information, view: www.ukrainianstudies.org.

Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands

Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands
Author: Graham Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1998-09-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521599689

This book examines how national and ethnic identities are being reforged in the post-Soviet borderland states.

Eurasian Borderlands

Eurasian Borderlands
Author: Tone Bringa
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137583096

This book examines changing and emerging state and state-like borders in the post-Soviet space in the decades following state collapse. This book argues border-making is not only about states’ physical marking of territory and claims to sovereignty but also about people’s spatial practices over time. In order to illustrate how borders come about and are maintained, this book looks at border communities at internal, open administrative borders and borders in the making, as well as physically demarcated international state borders. This book also pays attention to both the spatial and temporal aspects of borders and the interplay between boundaries and borders over time and thus identifies some of the processes at play as space is territorialized in Eurasia in the aftermath of state collapse.

Informal Nationalism After Communism

Informal Nationalism After Communism
Author: Abel Polese
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1838608737

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, nation building and identity construction in the post-socialist region have been the subject of extensive academic research. The majority of these studies have taken a 'top-down' approach - focusing on the variety of ways in which governments have sought to define the nascent nation states - and in the process have often oversimplified the complex and overlapping processes at play across the region. Drawing on research on the Balkans, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, this book focuses instead on the role of non-traditional, non-politicised and non-elite actors in the construction of identity. Across topics as diverse as school textbooks, turbofolk and home decoration, contributors - each an academic with extensive on-the-ground experience - identify and analyse the ways that individuals living across the post-socialist region redefine identity on a daily basis, often by manipulating and adapting state policy.In the process, Nation Building in the Post-Socialist Region demonstrates the necessity of holistic, trans-national and inter-disciplinary approaches to national identity construction rather than studies limited to a single-state territory. This is important reading for all scholars and policymakers working on the post-socialist region.