Examining The Place Of The Russian Minority

This was a bit interesting, because I am from another country and I have been in America for about eight years now. I still do identify with my Ukrainian culture and those roots very much, but I have been in America for long enough to adapt this new culture as well. This assignment really had me thinking about where I identify more, I really never thought about it much before. In my mind I am Ukrainian and I live in America and I am a citizen of U.S., but I feel like I am an American as well. As I think about it more this is how I identify with each culture. I think of myself as a Ukrainian and my roots are from where I was born and lived till I was fourteen. My mind was molded by my Ukrainian family, the way I act, the way I am as an individual is because of how and where I was raised. I still notice myself doing things that I did when I was in Ukraine, or thinking a certain way, as I did when I was in Ukraine. Things that my parents taught me, are still things I do sometimes, my thought process is still centered around those teachings. Mentally I identify with my Ukrainian roots, but the way I live my life now is much Americanized. I do also identify with American culture and I would not change one thing about it. But as a teacher in the future, I know that I will have to explore my American culture and use it in the class more, because a lot of my students will identify with the American culture. I think it is very important to really think about the culture you are in

Mankind has always aspired to be the largest, biggest, strongest, highest, essentially the best in everything. This is not untrue for the Russians who have had the largest country in the world for quite some time now. Russia covers one-sixth of the entire world’s land mass and has had a significant part in modern history. However, in order to understand why a country has become what it is now, one must look at its culture. A country’s culture not only reflects its citizens now but also its history and future.

According to Daina Stukuls this was led by the devastation it did to the civilian population in the three countries. For example, Latvia population before the war was 2.5 million and by the end of the war it plummeted to 1.58 million (p.232). During this time some in the Baltic States supported the Bolshevik revolution. However, others wanted an independent state especially in Latvia. While others in Latvia specifically the German population wanting to unify with Germany. However, the fight for independence was won by the nationalist with help from the British. All three Baltic countries declared their independence in

In the post-war period, Latvia was compelled to embrace Soviet cultivating techniques and the financial base created in the and was killed. Country territories were constrained into collectivisation. The enormous deluge of workers, managers, military staff and their wards from Russia and other Soviet republics began. By about persons touched base from other Soviet republics and the ethnic Latvian populace had tumbled to . A broad system to force bilingualism was started in Latvia, constraining the utilization of Latvian dialect for Russian. The greater part of the minority schools were shut down leaving just two dialects of guidelines in the schools-Latvian and Russian. The Russian dialects were taught outstandingly, and additionally Russian

Russia, as a country, has had a long and proud history. However, for a small time starting in 1917, things started to take a turn for the worse. There was widespread famine, disease, and killing by the instituted government. There was also no Russia. Instead, there was the glorious United Soviet Socialist Republics, or the USSR. This new country did not come around peacefully, but instead under the 1917 Russian Revolution and the revolting communist Bolsheviks. The Russian people were not in a better condition after the Russian revolution due to Stalin’s leadership of his country; the reason being the GULAGs that Stalin was sending his people to, the communes that the peasants were sent to, and the disastrous effects of his five year plans.

The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 brought with it a plethora of changes that shaped the population of the newly formed socialist society. The once imperial nation faced a great deal of emigration following the drastic change in leadership and politics of the nation. Following the civil war, some “two hundred thousand …Russians who escaped from Russia after the 1917 Revolution, spreading westward across Europe,” creating their own communities across the continent (Bennett). A

Artists, including musicians, were held on a short leash by the Soviet government. "Moscow controlled everything," commented Estonian composer Erkki Sven Tüür, who was 30 when Estonia (a country just north of Latvia, see above map) declared independence from the USSR in 1989, "You had to be a member of the Union and you had to be ideologically correct. Each score was brought to the Ministry of Culture, performed once, and forgotten. You were just happy for the money." Not only were the arts tightly controlled, but also language and culture, as Russian was the main language in schools and traditional Latvian culture was targeted. The Party's goal was to assimilate all music, language, and arts into the dominant culture of the

Russia has endured a long and substantial history of political regime changes from being a tsarist state, to adopting communism, to a post-communist transition era, and today may be in the process of democratic transition. Russia’s extensive political history is key to understanding the ever-changing political processes within the state. To understand the regime structure in Russia today we must assess and understand their political history, look at critical junctures in Soviet and Russian political developments, explore the post-war settlements of the Russian state, and finally explain the political regime of Russia through this analysis. The premise of this paper will be based on Thomas Carothers thesis on gray zone states. Vis-à-vis the typology Carothers uses to describe syndromes of a gray zone state, I shall attempt to generate a new thesis on the present Russian political system. By the end of the paper it will be clear as to how and why the political regime of Russia is one that actually presents a completely new type of regime development that can be dubbed a quasi-democracy.

     Gender roles in Russia have dramatically changed since the fall of the former Soviet Union and the fall of communism. It is hard to look directly at the constitution of Russia seeing as though the drafting and redrafting of their constitution is still underway. However, looking at the constitution of the former Soviet Union, you can see it is clearly stated that: “Women and men have equal rights.” It is very clear that in the Soviet Union they were trying to make it so that women and men were equal. It is still clear today that those same basic ideals are present in Russia. Women are clearly more equal in their country than in ours. In the workforce as well as in the home, women

Russia is a huge landmass and covers a vast amount of the earth’s surface area. Being so large, Russia contains a huge variety of different geographical features. There are several mountains, rivers, bodies of water, climate zones, and population centers in Russia. Most of the development in Russia is located in its core area, east of the Ural Mountains. There are several countries around Russia that used to be parts of a larger union called The Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, however, in 1991, the USSR broke apart into several other independent states. The new states that were formed are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and

Many countries in Europe were filled with fear when considering the Pan-Slavic movement sweeping the region. Pan-Slavism was a movement by the many Slavic groups in Europe to unite under one entity, in order to achieve their shared goals for the future of their people. Consequently, countries with a large Slav population feared that this movement would inspire a desire among the people to fight for freedom and to form a large new state of Slavs. This would subsequently cause the country to have to deal with internal rebellions and a possible loss of large territory. In fact, Austria’s representative at the Congress of Vienna, Prince von Metternich, feared that the usual occurrences of the country would be threatened by the nationalists adhering

Under Mikhail Gorbachev the Soviet Union underwent massive social, political and economic reform that drifted away from communist ideology and this ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union and failure of communism in Eastern Europe. This essay will focus on how the Perestroika reform and Glasnost policy programs as well as other external and internal pressures contributed to the failure of communism under Gorbachev. The aim of the Perestroika and Glasnost reforms was to restructure and strengthen the Soviet political and economic system and provide more freedom and democracy within the Soviet Union while strengthening Communism. However, these changes had achieved exactly what they aimed to prevent when they were first elaborated and led to the failure of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union. While focusing on the policies this essay will also focus on the major increase in nationalism that occurred in the Soviet Republics as a result of the Glasnost. External pressure from the western world was also a factor and the role that the United States and the Ronald Reagan administration played in the downfall of communism under Gorbachev will be examined. The essay will also discuss how the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the 1991 Coup d’état led to the failure of the policies and failure of communism.

When discussing Russia’s demographics, it is important to note that it is the largest country in the world, ranging across 17.1 million square kilometers. Russia thus has many different ethnic groups, languages, and religions. Russia’s reported population from 2017 is 143.9 million which includes over 170 ethnic groups designating as their nationalities. Russia’s major ethnic groups are Russian and Tatar with their languages being the top two as well. As for religion, Russians are mostly Russian Orthodox or Muslim, and the 2% are other Christians. To top it all off, “Russia has one of the best mass-education systems in the world, producing a literacy rate of 98%” (higher than most Western European countries) (O’Connor), consisting of primary school, secondary school, and higher education.

The present day Russian Federation involves a democratic system, given the presence of elections, an independent judiciary, and the supremacy of law. Yet, in democracy, the crux of it involves an inevitable paradox: law limits state power, but the state must have the power to enforce the law. However, finding the balance of the ability to enforce laws, and therefore maintaining order, while not infringing on civil liberties, requires a mutual understanding, a social contract, between the rulers and the ruled. This requirement has not found its place in the Russian political arena, especially since “creating a rule-of-law-based sate out of dictatorship is not easy” (Bressler 2009). In addition, the Russian psyche views authority as a source of force and violence (Yakovlev 1996), an etymological result of a continuity beginning from imperial Russia. Although the Russian Federation, the Union Soviet Socialist Republics, the Russian Empire, and the Tsardom of Russia differ significantly, a strong state remains prevalent in the core of Russian history and politics. In short, the nature of political rule in Russia involves a never ending tug of war between the seemingly undying authoritative soulless entity known as the state and the equally undying Russian people’s hunger for liberty.

Russia, known by most as the Russian Federation, is a federal state in Eurasia. Russia is the largest country in the world at 17,075,200 square kilometres by surface area, covering more than one eighth of Earth 's inhabited land, and the ninth most populous, with over 146.6 million people as of end of March 2016. The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the East, with almost eight-tenths of the population living within the European region of Russia. Russia 's capital, Moscow is one of the largest cities in Europe and the world. Its ohter major urban cities include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara.