Degradation of the Word or the Adventures of an Intelligent in Viktor Pelevin’s Generation II

This paper addresses the concept of the intelligentsia and its transformation in the post-Soviet period. I present a brief overview of the multiple and problematic ways of defining the intelligentsia, and then turn to a novel that I see as a chronicle of the post-perestroika intelligentsia, Viktor Pelevin’s Generation П. I suggest that the intelligentsia, the milieu in which major Russian cultural myths originated and developed, is itself best understood in terms of cultural myth—a cultural construct reflecting the group’s self-image. A major component of this image is the intelligentsia’s reliance on culture, and especially literature, as both a source and justification for its view of the world and its role in it. In Pelevin’s novel, the career of a poet turned advertising writer—copywriter— parallels the post-perestroika cultural crisis in Russia and the degradation of the Word, which, in turn, symbolizes the demise of the intelligentsia.     

Outsourcing human resource management: A comparison of Russian and U.S. practices

Our objective is to determine the current state of outsourcing of HRM functions at companies operating in Russia, both Russian and Russian-based foreign com-panies, and compare and contrast the results with the findings of the Society for Human Research Management (SHRM) study of outsourcing practices at American companies in the United States. The comparison reveals the differences and similarities in terms of reasons for outsourcing as well as the obstacles and problems in implementing HRM outsourcing decisions to a foreign setting.     

Media consumption and self-identification: Hungarian and Slovak case study

The media impact on the process of ethnic identification, particularly with regard to how ethnic minority individuals reflect upon their ethnic origin, is the focus of this article. We analyse the relationships media consumption has with the identity-reflection process using biographical narratives of individuals from two ethnic minority communities in Eastern European countries: Slovaks in Hungary and Hungarians in Slovakia, focusing on how media consumption channels ethnic self-identification of minority individuals in terms of their affinity with their country of origin, their country of residence, and with Europe as a whole. Ethnic minorities in these two countries have been intensely affected by political changes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We include analysis of some quantitative data and biographical narratives of ethnic minority individuals from the ENRI-EAST project, with close analysis of six biographical cases.