The article examines ideological and institutional role of the “greening” policy in the Soviet urban planning practice of 1920-1930s. Relying on the example of the socialist city of Uralmash in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) the author traces how the idea of the “green city” affected the development of the urban settlement in terms of its functional mechanism and symbolic transformation. By analyzing the logic of the Uralmash “green” policy and its main narratives he argues that successful improvement of the post-Soviet green zones depends not so much on the new urban city-planning initiatives as on the new symbols and meanings that could give a clear vision of these spaces in the current social and cultural context.
In this article, I focus ethnographically on the construction boom in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, and the ‘state-building through building-work’ metaphor in Kazakhstani political discourse. I investigate the relations between the state, space, and materiality. In the Soviet period, the state was a material and social whole, bound together by diverse infrastructures. After perestroika, that whole disintegrated, as was made evident by the splitting up of production facilities and infrastructures. However, since around the year 2000, the construction of the new capital has become a process of the reconstruction, at once material and metaphorical, of the state. Astana became the destination for hundreds of thousands of internal migrants, Kazakhstani citizens. For many, participating in the making of the new capital became a way to regain a sense of agentive subjectivity. The construction process and spectacular new buildings make the state the object of emotional involvement: hope, pride, and identifi cation. On the other hand, protracted construction and its inherent contradictions give rise to disillusionment and doubts as to the working of the state. In sum, in this article I point to the materiality of buildings and infrastructures as what lends a tangible reality to the state and allows for it to be infused with diverse, often mutually contradictory emotions.
This article discusses the role of history and language for the country of Belarus, which is on the border of Western and Eastern ideological systems. The content is based on observation and discussions with individuals during the time-period 2003– 2014. The aim of this article is to sociologically present a model which illustrates how post-Soviet authoritarian systems control time and space symbolically to recreate an ideological design that allows an authoritarian regime to maintain power through the use of the Soviet Symbolic framework. This model, based on the example of discussions with Belarusans, is applicable as a comparative tool to understand the processes taking place in the Ukraine and also in Russia. The argument in this article integrates history, systems of state ideology and identity formation on the border of two cultural civilizations. Comparative examples concerning the conflict with Russia and the Ukraine are used to apply the theoretical model based on current changes and events in the regional macro-infrastructure offering a sociological take on the link between historical and contemporary social and cultural changes in this region.
PL
W artykule przedstawiono znaczenie kulturowych uwarunkowań, w szczególności historii oraz języka, dla Białorusi – kraju leżącego na pograniczu zachodniej i wschodniej cywilizacji. Zaprezentowany teoretyczny model ma na celu objaśnienie działania postsowieckiego systemu władzy, gdzie autorytarny reżim wykorzystuje w sposób różnorodny elementy z przestrzeni symbolicznej w celu stworzenia ideologicznego uzasadnienia dla własnego funkcjonowania. W celu wyjaśnienia mechanizmów władzy na Białorusi odwołuję się do uwarunkowań historycznych, które oddziaływają na oficjalną ideologię, tworząc tym samym tożsamość mieszkańców kraju. Przedstawiony model został wypracowany na podstawie badań empirycznych prowadzonych za pomocą techniki obserwacji i wywiadów indywidualnych w okresie 2003–2014 na Białorusi. Wydaje się jednak, że ma on szersze możliwości eksplanacyjne, pozwalające zrozumieć działania decydentów politycznych w zakresie legitymizacji władzy w innych rosyjskojęzycznych krajach, które powstały po upadku Związku Radzieckiego.
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