Censorship in Translation in the Soviet Union: The Manipulative Rewriting of Howard Fast's Novel The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti

Abstract

Although translated literature was widely consumed in the Soviet Union, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to how translators negotiated the ideological and political forces present in the Soviet literary field. Defining censorship as a manipulative rewriting of discourses, the process under which texts are censored in the process of translation is examined using, as a case study, Howard Fast's novel The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti. Howard Fast, an American writer, was a committed Communist until 1957, and wrote several left-wing novels. The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti recounts the true story of two Italian radicals whose wrongful execution for murder caused protests around the world in the nineteen-twenties. Close comparison of the source and target texts demonstrates a large number of small shifts which, when viewed cumulatively, significantly affect the ideological positioning of the Russian target text. The overall result of these shifts, motivated by the unification of the linguistic field, is to create intertextuality with Soviet Socialist Realist discourse.     

Filming a Stalinist War Epic in Ukraine: Ihor Savchenko’s The Third Strike

Abstract

The article examines the production history of Ihor Savchenko’s film Tretii udar [The Third Strike, 1948], a World War II epic and the most significant project of the Kyiv Film Studio in the first post-war years. Using the example of The Third Strike, the author demonstrates how Stalinist cinema as an institution influenced Soviet film directors’ thematic and ideological choices as well as their style. Specifically, the supervision of such projects by the USSR’s political centre served to integrate Ukrainian film makers into Soviet cinema by fostering Soviet versions of the country’s political and social history and by preventing Ukrainian film makers from pursuing stylistic practices that might have become foundational to Ukrainian cinema. Filming a Stalinist war epic in postwar Ukraine was especially difficult in view of the Soviet struggle against Ukrainian nationalism. By featuring soldiers of different nationalities, The Third Strike underscored the idea of the “fraternal friendship of the Soviet peoples” during the war, which became a canonical element in Soviet depictions of the war. In this way, Ukrainian artists ingratiated themselves with the Soviet authorities and proved their loyalty to Russia.     

Training research-minded social workers: experience from Estonia*

ABSTRACT

Social work education in its modern sense started to develop after Estonia regained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union. The aim of this article is to introduce good practices of teaching research-mindedness, this being one of the main principles in teaching social workers-to-be in the University of Tartu in Estonia. We have been inspired by the academic tradition of university teaching in general, the new international definition of social work and, not least, the realisation of social workers in practice of not being able to apply academic knowledge to everyday social work practices. This article revisits the term research-mindedness and examines how it has been integrated into the university level teaching process. Our purpose is to discuss the methods students of bachelor’s and master’s programmes can learn to ‘translate’ social issues into research questions, critically appraise the findings and ‘translate’ them back as new research evidence for social work practice.     

‘Behemoth Pulls the Peasant’s Plough’: Convergence and Resistance to Business Civilization in China

Abstract

It has been widely held that China’s development was forged from a unique pathway to that of Western countries. As a result, it has been assumed that China’s historical experience of modernization contains important lessons for other developing states. However, as we show, modernization in China can be seen as sharing many of the same assumptions of development as the West. Using insights from Cox’s work on civilizations—particularly the notion of ‘Business Civilization’ (adapted from Susan Strange)—our paper examines how modernization theoretic assumptions underpin both Chinese and World Bank perspectives on agricultural development not only within China but also across their engagements, policies, and practices of development throughout Africa. We argue that development constitutes a political project historically inseparable from La mission civilisatrice of Business Civilization, extending a form of intersubjectivity and materiality, power and rationality, based on a specific civilizational worldview. This process retains a number of contradictions and points of conflict and we focus on the resistances of traditional forms of civilization in contestations around the imposition of commercialized agriculture.     

Language,Class, and Nation in a Soviet Ukrainian Blockbuster Comedy: Chasing Two Hares (1961)

Abstract

The subject of this article is one of the most popular comedy films of the late Soviet period, Za dvoma zaitsiamy [Chasing Two Hares]. Made at the Kyiv Film Studio in 1961, it was originally a Ukrainian-language film based on Mykhailo Staryts'kyi’s eponymous 1883 play that satirized pretentious upstarts eager to assimilate into Russian culture. However, the completed film was dubbed into Russian and released throughout the Soviet Union in the Russian version. The change of language reversed the meaning of the film’s satire, turning the movie into a harmless folkloric comedy that reinforced imperial cultural hierarchies rather than undermining them.     

Interpellation in the late Soviet period: contesting the de-ideologization narrative

Most literature on ideology in the late Soviet period notes the progressive de-ideologization of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) politics under Mikhail Gorbachev. Looking specifically at the legitimating functions of ideology, the article contests this generalization. In doing so, it proposes the concept of ideological interpellation to clarify the relationship between doctrine and regime legitimation. The author argues that interpellation – the construction of the ideal Soviet subject, in a way that sustained the relations of domination and production – was a consistent goal throughout the last decade of communist rule. However, while the party approached interpellation in different ways, it was unable to resolve official ideology’s rigidity and narrowness of appeal. These conclusions are supported by a discourse analysis of the 26th, 27th, and 28th CPSU congress proceedings.     

Andrii Liubka’s Carbide: Ukrainian democratic reforms through a dark glass

ABSTRACT

The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine and its reforms are the topics of Andrii Liubka’s novel Karbid (Carbide, 2015). Employing Voltairean laughter and neo-Gothic aesthetics, Liubka presents the idea of European integration (one of the expected outcomes of the reforms) implemented practically by the corrupt elites of the imagined Transcarpathian town of Vedmediv as a money-laundering enterprise – an underground tunnel for smuggling drugs and people’s organs from Ukraine to Europe. The author proposes that the elites – most of whom are criminals – personify Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection in the novel and represent social spheres that need reform. Contrary to the Euromaidan goals, these comprador elites desire even stronger borders between Ukraine and the European Union, as these facilitate their shadow economy, and they subject the local population to economic and social decline, turning them into disposable human waste. By applying the concept of abjection in its psychoanalytic and social forms to Liubka’s tragicomic novel, the author argues that his text points to Ukraine’s struggle to define itself as “West” and shed its totalitarian legacy of the Soviet “East,” and brings attention to the conflict between the post-Euromaidan national strivings of Ukraine’s citizens and the rampant corruption that negates their efforts.     

“泛阿拉伯主义”在美国媒体的“帝国”意象

20世纪上半叶,面对阿拉伯人的统一诉求,有相当一部分人通过美国媒体,结合西方世界对伊斯兰教的刻板印象,将“泛阿拉伯主义”附会到中世纪的“阿拉伯帝国”,进而视其为西方文明的对立面。纳赛尔掌权后,美国媒体出于对埃及亲苏外交的敌视,纷纷指责埃及政府试图仰仗苏联支持,建立“阿拉伯帝国”。随着埃及(阿联)与苏联之间矛盾的加剧,美国舆论界仍继续敌视纳赛尔的“泛阿拉伯主义”,认为纳赛尔建立“阿拉伯帝国”的“野心”虽然导致其与苏联的纷争,但仍是西方的威胁。美国人对纳赛尔的敌视,虽然伴有强烈的冷战心态,但他们频繁以“阿拉伯帝国”或“穆斯林帝国”的历史意象,比附纳赛尔的“泛阿拉伯主义”实践,实际上是对“东西对立”叙事模式的延续,反映出西方世界长久以来对“伊斯兰征服”的历史记忆,并连带着对中东地区整合倾向的担忧。     

In search of a lost people: Jews in present‐day Ukrainian historiography

A Relationship on Two Levels. Galia Golan, The Soviet Union and the Palestine Liberation Organization. An Uneasy Alliance. New York: Praeger, 1980. vii + 289pp. £15.25.

The Soviet ‘Black Book’ on the Holocaust. Vasily Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg (comp. and eds.), Chernaya kniga (The Black Book), annotated and indexed by Mark Kipnis and Hayah Lifshits. Jerusalem: Tarbut Publishers, 1980. xx‐vii + 547pp. Illus. Name Index. Place Index.

A Valuable Account of Jewish Heroism. Reuben Ainsztein, The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt. New York: Holocaust Library, 1979. 238pp. Bibl. $4.95.

The Reality of National Bolshevism. Mikhail Agursky, Ideologiya natsional‐bolshevizma (The Ideology of National Bolshevism). Introduction by Leonard Schapiro. Paris: YMCA Press, 1980. 321pp. Notes. Bibliography.

Communist Zionism in the USSR. Baruch Gurevitz, National Communism in the Soviet Union, 1918–28. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1980. xiii+ 121pp.     

The roots of Regina Spektor’s post-Soviet poetics

ABSTRACT

Regina Spektor’s rigorous training in piano, starting in the Soviet Union and continued throughout her youth in the United States, helps to explain her skills in composing complex and unexpected pop music. Less obvious, though, will be an understanding of the roots of her poetic skills in writing lyrics. This paper examines how Spektor was influenced by Russian bard tradition, as well as the widespread informal music dissemination network known as magnitizdat.     

Neoconservative intellectuals and the limitations of governing The Reagan administration and the demise of the Cold War

Abstract

During the 1970s, the then-emerging 'neoconservatives' promoted a foreign policy of aggressive containment of the Soviet Union. Many of these neocons were subsequently appointed to the Reagan administration; however, despite the apparent ideological convergence between Reagan and the neoconservatives, his administration did not constitute an opportunity for them to fully implement their foreign policy vision. Their underlying principles were more rigid and absolutist than those of Reagan and rejected any kind of compromise. In contrast, Reagan's strategy had a pragmatic side to it, favouring agreements with Moscow on certain issues. This limited the contribution neoconservatives could make to policy and many of them became quickly disillusioned with Reagan.     

Problems of Taxonomy,Issues of Class,Citizenship, Consumption,and Avdot’ia Smirnova’s KoKoKo (2012)

Sundry discussions of Russian society by scholars, journalists, and politicians suffer from imprecise taxonomy, wielding labels such as middle class, civil society, and creative class in an automatic transfer of discursive categories long defining Western societies to one at increasing odds with numerous Western values. As various surveys by Russian sociologists have indicated, a ‘middle class’ and ‘civil society’ in the traditional sense do not exist in Russia. Moreover, even ‘the intelligentsia’, as historically defined, seems to have diminished, evaporated, or emigrated. Indeed, the incisive portrayal of contemporary Russian class distinctions in Avdot’ia Smirnova’s film KoKoKo (2012) exposes the impotence of the self-serving intelligentsia, contrasted to the vitality and drive of ‘the people’, who may be the only hope for Russia’s future – neither the radiant future fantasized by the Soviet Union nor the democratic future that seemed possible after perestroika, but one that meaningful resistance to the authoritarianism of Putin’s regime will need to elaborate step by painstaking step.     

Trotsky’s error: multiplicity and the secret origins of revolutionary Marxism

ABSTRACT

Uneven and Combined Development uniquely incorporated societal multiplicity into Marxist theory. So why did its first application end in Stalinist dictatorship? This paper seeks an answer by turning the idea back on itself, applying it first to Trotsky’s doctrine of ‘permanent revolution’ and then to Marx’s original idea of revolution. Trotsky hoped that Russia’s ‘revolution of backwardness’ would be rescued by ‘advanced’ revolutions in the West, modelled on the French revolution. But what if – as this paper argues – that event too was ultimately a ‘revolution of backwardness’? Two implications follow. First, Trotsky’s ‘permanentist’ strategy was logically flawed: if all modern revolutions have been internationally-generated catch-up revolutions, then the idea of Bolshevism being rescued by ‘advanced revolutions’ elsewhere fails. But second, the consequences of multiplicity reach even deeper than Trotsky realized: they underlie and explain the original political formation, and troubled history, of revolutionary Marxism itself.     

The ‘Harmonization’ of Islam with the Neoliberal Transformation: The Case of Turkey

The end of the Cold War brought about a great uncertainty in relation to the geopolitical order. The prevalence of this neoliberal model of development had as a prerequisite the integration of countries other than the traditionally developed and powerful nations of the West. As a consequence, the developing or the less economically developed economies were the ones appearing to acquire ‘renewed’ importance. A fundamental aspect of these repercussions was the triggering of ideological debates over the compatibility of Islam with this stage of capitalist development. One major axon of these debates was the ‘desecularization’ of capitalist modernization and the integration of Islam in the new global order. This article examines the case of Turkey in this framework. It analyses how the ‘Conservative Democracy’ programme of the Justice and Development Party is ‘harmonizing’ Islam with the transformation of the country and how this transformation is presented with ‘local colours’, being more acceptable and creating the new hegemony in Turkey.     

Rediscovering schools for Jewish girls in Tsarist Russia

ABSTRACT

The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC), established in the early phase of the Soviet-Nazi war as a propaganda unit, gradually developed links with foreign Jewish organizations and began to act as a body taking responsibility for Soviet Jewish citizens’ interests. The turning point in the JAFC's destiny was the 1943 trip of its top representatives, Solomon Mikhoels and Itsik Fefer, to the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Britain. The success of their tour had encouraged the committee to extend the areas of its activity and, at the same time, had drawn a more attantive gaze of the Soviet secret police. In 1948, the decision came to close the JAFC and, concurrently or later, virtually the entire infrastructure of Jewish cultural life in the Soviet Union. In 1952, a group of Jewish intellectuals faced a secret trial, whose minutes are analyzed in the special section of East European Jewish Affairs. This article provides an introduction to the analysis presented in this special section.     

Labour Migration Policy in Russia: Considerations on Governmentality

The authors argue that Russian migration policy reflects the functioning of contemporary Russia's entire bureaucratic machine. The bureaucracy's Soviet‐era governance techniques on the one hand and the material interests of particular pressure groups on the other, shape the manipulation of immigration regulation that has occurred since the early 2000s. Therefore, attempts to liberalize migration regulation, i.e., to simplify the legalization of foreign workers, have always been incoherent, accompanied by reservations and limitations. Additionally, Russian actions are riddled with conflict between ‘geopolitical’ and domestic policy rationales. The authorities’ occasional attempts to use immigration regulation as a foreign policy tool acquire primarily symbolic value in the ‘domestic political market’ rather than serving any instrumental purpose. The effort to enhance Russian influence in the post‐Soviet space through the ‘reintegration project’ (Eurasian Economic Union) collides with the goal of national labour market protection, since integration entails the removal of barriers to labour movement.     

Respect for persons

Abstract

The notion of ‘respect for persons’ is a key notion in moral philosophy as well as in social work ethics. The Kantian notion of a person has, together with individualism, liberalism and positivism, given rise to a strange ideological mixture which ‘guided’ social work theory and practice for some time. Gaita's concept of respect for human beings, examined in this paper, contrasts with the poverty of this ideological mixture. Concepts such as ‘goodness’, ‘remorse' and 'sensibility’ explain why Gaita sees the ethical as something that is both sui generis and of the utmost practical importance. They clarify the irreplaceability of human beings, emphasise the need for moral agents to have ‘historical integrity’, and in general show that a moral agent is much more substantial than a res cogitans. This paper attempts to indicate the relevance of these considerations for social work.     

Nadezhda Mandel’shtam,Romola Nijinsky and the Literary Legacies of their Love

Using the recently published microfiche collection, The GULAG Press, 1920–1937, the author examines the newspapers of BAMlag, a Gulag camp system in the Soviet Far East. Although the papers were in many respects propaganda, the author views them as a blueprint for reeducation in the camps in the early- to mid-1930s. They were a part of a broad discourse of transformation—both personal and societal—that existed within the Soviet Union at that time. Whether or not the inmates would have followed and believed the blueprint is a difficult but important question, which the author grapples with but ultimately leaves unanswered. Regardless of this, however, the newspapers represent an attempt to instill the Bolshevik values of reeducation through labour and kul’turnost’ into the prison camp population, and thus show the interconnected role of both of these ‘values’ in the (re-)forging of individuals.     

‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization: A View from the ‘East’

Abstract

In view of the broad scope of literature on globalization, this paper provides a synoptic reading of some of the globalization literatures, organized as ‘discourses’. The analysis of the discourses on globalization is confined to three overlapping discourses, namely, regional, ideological and economic discourses. Specific references and examples of local uptake of globalization will be drawn from Singapore and the wider Asia pacific region, as Beck (2002) has reminded us that we cannot even think about globalization or discuss it effectively without the reference to specific locations and places. Hence the subtitle of this paper, ‘A View from the East’, is deliberate to signal the often forgotten fact that Singapore, as well as the wider Asia Pacific region, is ‘part of the “global” sphere that the West has dispersed itself into’.