Post Soviet

This study analyzes policies and public attitudes concerning the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) after the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine. The issue of the political rehabilitation of these nationalist organizations, which relied on terrorism and were involved in Nazi genocide and ethnic cleansing of Poles during World War Two, became one of central political issues in this post-Soviet state. The question is which factors determine attitudes towards the OUN and the UPA in contemporary Ukraine. The hypothesis is that regional factors are the main determinants of the public opinion concerning these organizations. This paper uses analysis of historical studies and archival data to examine policies and controversies concerning the OUN and the UPA. It employs comparative and regression analyses of the 2009 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology survey to determine effects of regional factors, compared to other factors, such as ethnicity, language, and age, on attitudes towards the Stepan Bandera faction of the OUN and the UPA. The paper shows that that regional factors and perceptions of the involvement of the Bandera faction of the OUN and the UPA in mass murder are strongest predictors of views concerning these nationalist organizations.

Have there been changes in political institutions, parties, leaders, and regional political orientations in Ukraine after the "Orange Revolution"? If so, are the changes revolutionary or evolutionary? Most previous studies refer to the 2004 presidential elections and mass protest actions as a revolution. To test this claim, this article analyzes political changes in Ukraine. Survey data are used to compare changes in pro-Russian and pro-Western orientation, support for major parties in the 2002, 2006, and 2007 parliamentary elections, and support for leading presidential candidates since the 2004 presidential elections. The implications of these changes for development of democracy in Ukraine are also considered.

""During the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe came close to a violent break-up similar to that in neighboring Moldova, which witnessed a violent secession of the Transdniestria region. Numerous elections, including the hotly contested 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine, and surveys of public opinion showed significant regional divisions in these post-Soviet countries. Western parts of Ukraine and Moldova, as well as the Muslim Crimean Tatars, were vocal supporters of independence, nationalist, and pro-Western parties and politicians. In contrast, Eastern regions, as well as the Orthodox Turkic-speaking Gagauz, consistently expressed pro-Russian and pro-Communist political orientations. Which factors ? historical legacies, religion, economy, ethnicity, or political leadership ? could explain these divisions? Why was Ukraine able to avoid a violent break-up, in contrast to Moldova?
This is the first book to offer a systematic and comparative analysis of the regional political divisions in post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova. The study examines voting behavior and political attitudes in two groups of regions: those which were under Russian, Ottoman, and Soviet rule; and those which were under Austro-Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, and Czechoslovak rule until World War I or World War II. This book attributes the regional political divisions to the differences in historical experience. This study helps us to better understand regional cleavages and conflicts, not only in Ukraine and Moldova, but also in other cleft countries.""

This study analyzes changes in regional electoral behavior and foreign policy attitudes in Ukraine after “Orange Revolution.” The research question is whether the public support for major groups of political parties and presidential candidates and attitudes towards principal foreign policy issues in regions of Ukraine have changed after the “Orange Revolution.” This article employs comparative and statistical analyses of voting results of the 2007, 2006, and 2002 parliamentary elections, the 2010 local elections, and the 2004 and 2010 presidential elections, and survey data to examine effects of regional political culture, compared to other factors, on support for pro-nationalist/pro-Western and pro-Russian/pro-communist political parties and presidential candidates. This study also uses survey data to analyze changes in attitudes towards NATO, the European Union, and a union with Russia in regions of Ukraine and a change in separatist preferences in Crimea. The analysis shows that Ukraine after the “Orange Revolution” remained divided along regional lines in terms of support for political parties and presidential candidates and attitudes towards foreign orientation.

"Museutopia. A Photographic Research Project by Ilya Rabinovich
will be of great interest for a large audience of people from the lovers of photography, museums, history or Moldova‘s cultural life to the consecrated scholars studying visual arts, philosophy, ethnography, museology or memory and identity through the investigation of complex interrelationship between ‗gaze,
diaspora, trauma‘ (p. 15). The impact of dramatic transformations happened between the last decade of socialist period and the first two decades of post-soviet Moldova history still constitutes a disputable topic among specialists from different fields, as well as the emerging public history discourses on memory, identity
and nation-building. Along the lines of Benedict Anderson work on nationalism and identity (Anderson 1991), the specialists in cultural
heritage Peter Aronsson and Gabriella Elgenius consider, in terms of imagination, national museums are uniquely placed to illuminate that which is actually imagined with reference to an emerging,re-emerging or fully formed nation‘‘(Aronsson, Elgenius 2011, 5)."

"Analyzing the questions of political leadership in the period between the year  1989 and 2009, it is essential to indicate the aims and stages of the series of changes and, expressed mainly by the level the political elites’ development and parliamentary elections. After 1989, a total collapse of the Soviet ideological monopoly has taken place, not only in Moldova, but also in other socialist countries, therefore shaping a new set of rules  governing the political life and leadership. Changes of the system that have taken place in the Republic of Moldova should be treated as a result of the following factors: the formation of the independence movement and the National Front, and  the global and logistics support of the international institutions to strengthen the statehood and the social affirmation in the country.
Since its independence, the Republic of Moldova, witnesses an ongoing struggle for shaping the state  regime and the future model of political leadership.  Years 1991-2009 have become a visible example of a leadership characterized as authoritarian and autocratic. Political elites were characterized as  "disabled" in relation to the role of Russia in the region. This condition has still been observed , despite many reforms that have been introduced. The institution of political leadership in the Republic of Moldova in 1989-2009 was deprived of social authority, which in turn made the country's political system a non-consolidated one.
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This collection of studies by social anthropologists describes the complex and often controversial processes of religious change occurring in the postsocialist world. By critically examining the influx of missionaries, the adoption of ‘new’ faiths, and the reactions to these unanticipated shifts in religious landscape, the authors offer valuable insight into the fate of state supported secularism as well as providing fresh critiques of anthropological studies of conversion.