Beauty and Distortion

An art critic's evaluation of the modern painting and sculpture included in the recent French Exhibition in Moscow. Sovetskaya Kultura, September 5, 1961.     

Meyerhold and the Theater

When I Was a boy I saw V. E. Meyerhold a number of times at the Moscow Art Theater. I remember him as a crazy old man playing Ivan the Terrible and as an emotional, indignant youth in The Sea Gull.     

Reactions to an Exhibition of English Art

This review of an English Art Exhibition recently held in Moscow reveals markedly different appraisals of English painters, particularly of "Classical" and "Modern" representatives of English art. ["Greatness and Decline of English Pictorial Art," Sovetskaia Kultura, May 28, 1960—abridged.]     

Literature and the Arts

The author reviews The Revolutionary Romanticism of Shelley, a critical biography by I. Neupokoeva (Goslitizdat, Moscow, 1959, 470 pp.) which shows the poet as a child of his age and relates his creative output to his social as well as his esthetic views. Literaturnaya Gazeta, 1961, No. 3.     

Too Much Work in the Boarding Schools!

An important new development in Soviet education is the nation-wide organization of a system of boarding schools for children. The following article by the Principal of Boarding School No. 15, Moscow, deals critically with a current pedagogical problem — over-loading children with classes and homework. "We Must Find A New Way — And Can," Izvestia, March 23, 1961.     

Science and Technology

Following Academician Kolmogorov's initial statement over his signature, the rest of the article is a popularized version of a report prepared for a graduate seminar of the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University. The popularization was prepared by the editors of the magazine Tekhnika Molodyozhi (Technique for the Youth) in conjunction with Kolmogorov's colleague from the University's Laboratory of Probability and Statistical Methods, N. G. Rychkova. Tekhnika Molodyozhi, 1961, Nos. 10-11; slightly abridged.     

Social Psychology in American Sociology

A Soviet scientist analyzes the emergence within the past half century of social psychology and psychological approaches in sociology as disciplines typical of Western philosophical interpretation. A contrast is made between this and the Marxist appraisal of social phenomena. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, Seria Ekonomiki, Filosofia (Journal of Moscow University, Economics and Philosophy Series), 1960, No. 5 — slightly abridged.     

First Textbooks on Modern History

The second half of 1997 saw the publication, at last, of textbooks on modern history for the basic school (Modern History. Part I: A Textbook for the Seventh Grade of the Basic School [Novaia istoriia. Chast' I: Uchebnik dlia 7 klassa osnovnoi shkoly], L. N. Zharova, I. A. Mishina, M. V. Ponomarev, V. A. Rogozhkin, A. A. Fedorenko [Moscow: Center for Humanities Education, 1997]; and Modern History, 1500-1800: A Textbook for the Seventh Grade of General Education Institutions [Novaia istoriia, 1500-1800: Uchebnik dlia 7 klassa obshcheobra-zovatel'nykh uchrezhdenii], A. Ia. Udovskaia, P. A. Baranov, L. M. Vaniushkina [Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1997]). Their lack had created a dead-end situation in me seventh and eighth grades. Since they came out in press runs of 50,000, they are not going to make it into all the schools. What is important, however, is that a beginning has been made. Let us hope that these will be followed by reprintings as well as the publication of new books.     

The Impact of Tolstoy

An analysis by a ranking Soviet writer was presented at a meeting at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, November 19, 1960, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's death. This is a critical appraisal of Tolstoy, of his contribution to the mainstream of Russian and world literature and of his significance as a social thinker. ("Leo Tolstoy," Pravda, November 20, 1960—abridged.)     

In This Issue

Norbert Wiener of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the leading U.S. scholar in cybernetics, attended the First Congress of the International Federation on Automatic Control and Regulation held in Moscow in the summer of 1960. He was invited to visit the editorial offices of the major Soviet philosophy journal for a discussion with its editors. The following is a stenographic report of this discussion. Professor Wiener's remarks are retranslated from the Russian. ("Norbert Wiener Visits the Editorial Offices of Our Journal," Voprosy Filosofii, 1960, No. 9.)     

Publisher's Announcement

Norbert Wiener of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the leading U.S. scholar in cybernetics, attended the First Congress of the International Federation on Automatic Control and Regulation held in Moscow in the summer of 1960. He was invited to visit the editorial offices of the major Soviet philosophy journal for a discussion with its editors. The following is a stenographic report of this discussion. Professor Wiener's remarks are retranslated from the Russian. ("Norbert Wiener Visits the EditorialOffices of Our Journal," Voprosy Filosofii, 1960, No. 9.)     

Some Comments on American Historians

Excerpts from a chapter on American historiography dealing with F. J. Turner, Charles Beard and others who reexamined American history at the turn of the century… With the Muckrakers and their contributions … And with the emergence in the 20th century of a new school of Negro historians led by W. E. B. DuBois. An Outline of Modern and Contemporary U. S. History, Vol. 1 of two volumes, published by the Historical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1960.     

Paris, 1939

In the spring of 1939 Savich left for Moscow. We went to Le Havre to see him off. Many Spaniards were on the same steamship, bound for the Soviet Union. We stood on the dock; there was a strong wind; again in my mind's eye I saw Spain, now lost to us. I asked Savich to write me from Moscow; but it was a long while before I heard from him-for a time people preferred not to write abroad.     

Notes

An airliner lands at Vnukovo Airport. A few minutes later its passengers are already in Moscow. They have traveled to town by express coach on an electric monorail road. Such a road is already in the drawing-board stage. Its first line will connect Vnukovo Airport with the terminal of the Frunze Radius of the Moscow Subway. In the not too distant future similar noiseless high-speed coaches will transport passengers by monorail to suburban recreation centers around Moscow.     

The Hip System

The first Soviet hippies appeared in Moscow and in Leningrad in the late 1960s. They called themselves the System, thus emphasizing the importance of personal contacts and ties in the movement, the presence of "their own circle." The System began to form its own "language" (henceforth we will call it "System slang"), which took a great deal from the already-existing vocabulary of the vulgar, debased colloquial style; absorbed individual words and expressions from jargons that preceded it (for example, criminal jargon, the jargon of the stiliagi ["fashion plates"—Tr. Ed.], and so on); and created many new words, making use of old methods of word formation (shortening words, transferring words from one stylistic category to another, and developing figurative and emotional-intensive meanings of certain classes of words) and its own special method of word formation, which we characterize as redundant borrowing [izbytochnoe zaimstvovanie]. A considerable percentage of System slang consists of anglicisms—which, however, differ from traditional borrowings in many ways. The fact is that, as a rule, the borrowings do not have an unambiguous verbal analogue in Russian and frequently come into the language along with the concepts and phenomena that they connote. We have called these anglicisms "redundant" because they represent precise doubles of words already existing in the language, in all respects except one—they are classified as slang.     

Policy advice in an authoritarian environment: urban transport policies in Moscow and Beijing (2010–2017)

ABSTRACT

Fighting traffic congestion is a key policy challenge in large developing countries such as China and Russia. Highly populated, fast-growing cities like Beijing and Moscow develop urban transportation strategies that focus mainly on combating traffic congestion and modernizing existing infrastructure, but these problems are tied in with air pollution, safety on roads, parking issues, and public transport. In authoritarian landscapes, the policy-making process is not widely open to external actors or the general public, but it still requires expert knowledge. The usefulness of the advice offered by policy advisory institutions that are not a part of the bureaucracy depends strongly on authorities’ capacity to absorb their innovative proposals, informal contacts between advisers and authorities, and financial priorities. This paper analyses aspects of current urban transport policies in Beijing and Moscow with a particular focus on the nature of policy advisory practices in this sphere.     

Introduction to "The Diary of Anne Frank"

This is Ehrenburg's foreword to the Russian translation of the widely known record of a young Jewish girl growing up in Nazi-occupied Holland. It was recently issued (August 1960) by the Foreign Literature Publishing House in Moscow.     

Hemingway

In March 1937 I was living in what used to be Madrid's Palace Hotel, now a hospital. The wounded cried out, there was a smell of carbolic acid everywhere. The building was unheated. There was little food, and as in Moscow in 1920 I often fell asleep dreaming of a piece of meat.     

The Eastman Orchestra in Moscow

CONSERVATORY student orchestras are quite common. They have long existed as a link in the system of training young musicians and are to be found everywhere. The Moscow Conservatory, for instance, boasts two full student symphony orchestras; in addition a special string orchestra was organized there about a year and a half ago.     

The New Soviet-American Relations Institute

In response to the feelings expressed by numerous public figures and organizations an Institute of Soviet-American Relations has been established in Moscow. The event launching it was a public meeting held at the Friendship House on August 31, which reiterated the Soviet people's desire to live in peace and friendship with the people of the USA.