B0135 - MODERNITY AND STATE-BUILDING IN EASTERN EUROPE AND THE EURASIAN SPACE

Learning outcomes

Students will be provided with an interdisciplinary introduction to the two main relevant issues, which mark the complexity of East-Central Europe, the Balkans, and Eurasia in contemporary times. These issues are the relation to modernity and the idea of nation. As a result, students are expected to get a comprehensive knowledge of the controversial debates on development and its patterns, since the industrial revolution to Gorbaèëv, either in Russia/Soviet Union or in the East Central European countries, and in the Balkans, by learning the most relevant aspects of narodnièestvo, peasantism, bolshevism, destalinization and market socialism. Moreover, the course is offering an interdisciplinary introduction to the State building process in East Central Europe, Russia/Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Eurasian space. Students are expected to make comparisons and grasp a comprehensive picture of the impact of nationalism, self-determination, and the process of construction/deconstruction of State institutions from the crisis of the Great pre-modern Empires to the current challenges of the EU Enlargement Eastwards

Course contents

The course is divided in two modules focusing on Modernity and nation-Building respectively. The first one examines the controversial issues of modernity and development, since the industrial revolution has accelerated the international competition, in terms of innovation, capitals, production modes, labour organization, social systems, and equality.

As well known, its crucial impact on Central, South East Europe, and Russia/Eurasia challenged the existing predominant rural organization of their societies as well as raised the controversial questions of “backwardness”.

Both these questions will be analysed under different aspects, focusing on debates about theories of development and the factors that contributed in rooting a sense of “distinctiveness”, with elements of frustration and exclusion, condensed in the broader category “Eastern Europe”.

The rejection of the notion of “East” and the fervour to achieve the same stage of development as Western Europe will be considered in their problematic approaches to the ideas of welfare and egalitarianism, in the tension between the desire for modernity and the economic, social, and cultural obstacles to it. Consequently, this section will particularly focus on (a) the aspirations of the narodničestvo in Russia and in the Balkans; (b) the peasant movement in East-Central Europe between the two World Wars and its competition with Bolshevism; (c) the debate about the industrialization of the USSR in the 20s and the outlets imposed by Stalin; (d) the reforms which stemmed from the process of destalinization and the debate on the socialist market in the 50s and 60s; (e) the growth without reforms and new waves of changes promoted by Gorbačëv.

Within this framework, the underlying reasons of the nexus between politics and economics will be investigated by considering either their far-reaching cultural implications in the spectrum of the political systems, or the desire for modernity in its relations towards the “West”, in terms of assimilation and/or distinctiveness, while the socialist experience will be approached as an attempt to overcome underdevelopment, with its scopes and limits, up to the collapse of 1989-1991.

To these ends, the course will look at a number of key methodological issues and how they are tackled in the social sciences; the approach will be interdisciplinary and students will be invited to read original documents and basic literature in order to prepare themselves for presentations.

Module Structure and readings

Lesson 1:

Introduction to the subject and methodology:

Introduction to the subject. Methods of working and studying. The Program of the course. Assignments

Lesson 1 (introductory)

The notions: Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Modernity, networking, diasporas and the Métissage:

how to deal with development and nation-states

Modernity: definitions.

Habermas’ approach, similarities and differences with the East European frameowrk.

Zygmunt Bauman:

Solid and Liquid Modernity as a trend: the fusion of notions: from tradition/habit/usages (with economic liberation) to the fusion of the family, the class and the neighborhood.

The Challenges of Enlightenment and Modernity in Eastern and Western Europe. Time-Space compression: the radical changes from the industrial revolution.

Nation State (Solid Modernity, homogeneity, compatibility with industrial production).

Mass societies, gender policies the suffrage, legitimization of powers and loyalties from the 18th to the 21st century

European Networking in History and the New nomadisms (Liquid Modernity, diasporas, hybridity/métissages);

Modernity module:

Lesson 2:

The Social Origins of East European Politics

Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in a Historical Perspective (pp. 5-30)

Daniel Chirot, The Origins of backwardness in Eastern Europe (pp. 2-13)

Lesson 3:

The Populist controversy on capitalism:

the first debate in the theories of development

Walicki, The controversy over capitalism (pp. 1-28)

Gerzen, From the Other Shore: on peasants in Russia (pp. 180-192)

Bakunin, Revolutionary Catechism, ch. X, Social Organization (pp. 87-95)

Lesson 4:

Industrialization and the «Peasant state»: the second debate

Lenin, Decree on the Land (1917), pp. 81-82, Daniels

Stambolijski, The Political and Social Foundations of the Agrarian Organizations (8 pp.)

Mitrany, The role of the Peasant Movement between the wars pp. 149-156 in Marx against the Peasant

Lesson 5:

Internationalism and the Soviet industrialization debate:

(the third debate)

Lenin, The Tax in Kind, pp. 143-144, Daniels

Bukharin, The NEP of Russia, pp. 188-193 in AA.VV. In Defence of the Russian Revolution

Trotsky, Thesis on Industry, pp. 195-208 IN Idem

Preobrazensky, The New Economics, pp. 175-178, Daniels

Lesson 6:

Reforming the Soviet system? the Origins of the Fourth Debate

Malenkov, On Agriculture pp. 316-317 Daniels

Hruscev, The Virgin Lands Program, pp. 317-320 Daniels

Liberman, Proposals and the 1965 Reform, pp. 365-370 Daniels

Kosygin, Soviet Consumerism, pp. 385-387 Daniels

Lesson 7:

In search for a “socialist market”:

Broadening the Fourth Debate to the Camp

Varga, Democracies of a New Type, pp. 142-144 Daniels 2

Imre Nagy, Reform Communism, pp. 82-87 in Gale Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism

Recommendations of the Hungarian Trade Union Council on Workers’ Council, 1956, pp. 236-237 Daniels 2

Kadar, The New Economic Mechanism, pp. 321-324 Daniels 2

KPC, The Action Program (April 1968), pp. 329-336 Daniels 2

Lesson 8:

The Third Player between USSR and the Camp:

the Yugoslav Self-Management

Tito, On the Law of Self-Management, June 1950, pp. 73-78

Djilas, The New Class, pp. 101-106 in Gale Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism

Boris Kraigher, On Economic Reform 1965, pp. 183-194

Edvard Kardelj, On Pluralism of Interests in Self-managed communities, 1977, pp. 379-399

Lesson 9:

The Communist Idea of Modernity and the Dissent:

the penetration of the world interdependence

The Helsinki Accords, pp. 366-371 Daniels 2

Currents of Dissent, from Sacharov to Medvedev, pp. 371-380 Daniels

CPSU, The Scientific Technological Revolution, pp. 387-392 Daniels

Sabine Rosenbladt, Environmental Concerns in Poland 1988, pp. 188-192 in Gale Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism

Lesson 10:

The Communist Idea of Modernity and Gorbacev:

the Fifth Debate on politics and economic

Gorbacev, On Cooperation between Socialist Countries, from the speech in Prague 1987 (pp. 194-196)

Gorbacev, Socialism in Development and Perestrojka (pp. 41-54)

Nation Building Module: This module will concentrate diachronically and synchronically on the processes that have characterized the development of (a) nationalism, as a key ideological framework in East Central Europe, USSR and the Balkans, (b) federalism, both as project of coexistence/interdependence and a political experience of the 20^th century communism, and (c) the nation/state building process since the 19th century with its controversial interpretations. The module is aimed to offer to the students a broad and introductory knowledge of the most relevant aspects that have marked politics and history from the crisis of the modern dynastic empires to the collapse of the communist federations. The mechanisms connected to the implementation of the ideas of self-determination and secession will be analyzed in their own theoretical and substantial implications, following either the dynamics between civic and ethnic nation-building process or the conflict between the ideas/projects of inclusiveness via federalism, and the attempts of constructing homogeneous cultural and political groups based on the exclusiveness of otherness. Therefore, students will acquire an interactive picture of the complexity of changes from nationalism to globalization in the East-European experience, by discussing the content of the terminology, the main academic and policy-makers interpretations of nation and state, as well as the historical developments of the 19th and 20th century in East-Central Europe, USSR/Eurasia, and the Balkans. The main topics that will be at the focus of the classes will be as follows:

* Enlightenment, theories of Nationalism and federalist projects in Eastern Europe

* Cosmopolitism, nationalism and communism

* Political Cultures in Eastern Europe and State building processes

* Self-determination, Secession, and Patriotism

* Social Changes between patriarchism and gender relations

Lesson 1

Theories of Nationalism (1): Primordialists and Voluntarists.

Topics:

The Nation and the philosophy of history:

Nationalism and Primordialism: Herder, Fichte. The poetry and the mission

The Volutarist approach to the nation

Readings:

Herder, Fichte, Rénan, Mazzini

Lesson 2

Theories of Nationalism (2): Constructivists

Modernity, intellectuals and the constructivists: printing press and language

The nation as an invented tradition: myths and memory

Readings: Anderson, Gellner, Hobsbawm, Weber

Lesson 3

Self-Determination in Lenin and Wilson

Nationalism and self-determination in Wilson and Lenin

Readings:

Declaration of the Rights of People of Russia, 1917 (p. 1)

Garushiants, The National Programme of Leninism (pp. 31-47)

Derek Heather, Background to the Fourteen Points (pp. 36-46)

Link, Wilson: The Fourteen Points Address 8 Jan. 1918 (pp. 535-539)

Wilson, President Wilson Speech of Feb. 11, 1918 (pp. 6)

Lesson 4

Soviet federalism

Soviet federalism and Autonomization

Lenin and the indigenization

Communism and the internationalism (Stalin, Werth, pp. 205-217)

Readings

Lenin, On the Question of Nationalities or of “Autonomization”, 30-31 Dec. 1922 (pp. 151-153)

Joseph Stalin, The Nation (pp. 18-21)

The Formation of the USSR: The Union Constitution, Jan. 13, 1924 (pp. 165-167)

Kommunist, The merger of nationalities, n. 12, 1982

Lesson 5

Irredentism, Power Politics, and Nazism

from 1870 to 1991 (from imperialism to the Balkan cooperation in the late 80s)

19^th century: panslavism, neoslavism, Czartoryski and Kossuth)

Italian Irredentism and imperialism

Hungarian revisionism and the Trianon trauma

Hitler and racism

Readings:

Kallis, Fascist Expansionism in Practice (pp. 104-121)

Zeidler, Irredentism in Everyday Life in Hungary during the Inter-War period (pp.71-88)

Corni, “Volk”, “Nation”, “Rasse” in the Theory and Practice of the National Socialism (pp. 49-68)

Lesson 6

The Yugoslav federalism

The structure of the Yugoslav federalism

Its relations with self-management and its limits

The categories in use

Readings:

AVNOJ decision on Building Yugoslavia on the Federal Principle (Nov. 29, 1943, pp. 585-586)

Djordjevic, The Forms and Structure of Yugoslav Federalism (pp. 365-392)

Mostov, Politics of National Identities in former Yugoslavia (pp. 58-73

Lesson 7

Nationalism and Sexuality: the Gender Approach to Nationalism

History of respectability

Nationalism, middle class and sexual homogeneity

Gender hierarchical relations

Readings:

Mosse, Nationalism and Respectability (pp. 1-22)

Verdery, From Parent States to Family Patriarchs: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Eastern Europe, (EEPS, pp. 225-255)

Mostov-Ivekovic, From Gender to Nation-Introduction (pp. 9-25)

Duhacek, Gender Perspective of Political Identities in Yugoslavia (pp. 113-126)

Lesson 8

The Nation and the State

States, nations and macrioregions in the changing geopolitics of post-socialist contexts

Readings:

Connor, A nation is a nation, is a state, is an ethnic group, is…, (pp. 36-46)

Neubauer, What’s in the Name? Mitteleuropa, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, East-Central Europe (pp. 1-9)

Kedourie, Nationalism and Self-Determination (pp. 49-55)

Law on the Special Juridical Status of Gagauzia, Dec.23, 1994 (p. 3-5)

Lesson 9

Assessing the access to independence: when a new state is legitimized to exist?

Readings:

Conference on Yugoslavia, Opinions of the Arbitration commission, 1992

Constitutional Court of Canada, Reference re Secession of Quebec, 1996

ICJ, Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo (paragraphs 101-122), 2010

Lesson 10

Politics and Cultures under transformation

Globalization and egualitarianism; gender policies and new nomadisms; family organizations, religious prescriptions and new forms of intolerance: Post Nation-State reshaping and democracy

Readings:

Gringrich-Barks, Neonationalism (pp. 2-23)

Vladimir Putin, Address of the President of Russia in Crimea Republic, March 18, 2014 (pp.1-7)

Stephem Krasner, Problematic Sovereignty (pp. 1-21)

Braidotti, Nomadic European Citizenship (pp. 223-247)

Readings/Bibliography

Recommended readings:

Exam's program:

Compulsory reading list:

Compulsory reading:

Stefano Bianchini, Eastern Europe and the Challenges of modernity1800-2000, Routledge, London-New York, 2015.

Stefano Bianchini, Liquid nationalism and State Partition in Europe, Edward Elgar, London, 2017.

Together with:

All the documents selected and discussed during the lectures

And the support of the following references:

For the Modernity module:

Piotr S. Wandycz, The Price of Freedom. A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present, Routledge, New York, 1992, pp. 1-11;

George D. Jackson Jr., Comintern and Peasant in Eastern Europe 1919-1930, Columbia Univ. Press, New York and London, 1966, pp. 3-150;

David Mitrany, Marx against the peasant: a study in social dogmatism, Chapel Hill, 1951 (only the third chapter on the “Peasant Revolution”).

Ivan T. Berend, Central and Eastern Europe 1944-1993. Detour from the periphery to the periphery, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1998 pp. 127-181;

Barbara Falk, The Dilemmas of Dissidence in East-Central Europe, CEU Press, Budapest, 2003, pp. 313-364;

John B. Allcock, Explaining Yugoslavia, Columbia U. Press, New York, 2000, pp. 67-89;

Additional suggested readings:

Björn Hettne, Development Theory and the Three Worlds, Longman, Harlow Essex, 1995, pp. 219-248.

Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: the Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenment, Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, 1994, pp. 1-16;

Andrzey Walicki, The Controversy over Capitalism, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1969;

Stephen Cohen and others, Was the Soviet System Reformable?, in «Slavic Review», n. 3, vol. 63, fall 2004, p. 459-554.

For the Nation-Building module:

Mostov, Nation and Nation-State, in: Michael T. Gibbons (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Political Though, Wiley and Sons, Hoboken NJ, 2015.

Henry Huttenbach and Francesco Privitera (eds.), Self-Determination. From Versailles to Dayton. Its Historical Legacy, Longo, Ravenna, 1999.

Stefano Bianchini, Joseph Marko, Robert Craig Nation, Milica Uvalic, Regional Cooperation, Peace Enforcement and the Role of the Treaties in the Balkans, Longo, Ravenna, 2007 (only the chapters of the following authors: Vankovska, Marko, Pajic, Hoxhaj, Craig Nation, and Janjic).

Michael Libal, Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans and in the Caucasus. Some General Considerations, In “Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies”, n. 2, vol. 2, 2002.

Metta Spencer, Separatism. Democracy and disintegration, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 1998.

Stefano Bianchini, Sanjay Chaturvedi, Rada Ivekovic and Ranabir Samaddar, Partitions. Reshaping States and Minds, Frank Cass, London, 2004.

John Hutchinson and Anthony Smyth, Nationalism, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1994

Stefano Bianchini, Craig Nation (eds.), The Yugoslav Conflict and Its Implications for International Relations, Longo Editore, Ravenna, 1998.

Vladimir Kolossov, Ethnic and Political Identities and Territorialities in the Post-Soviet Space, in «GeoJournal», n. 48, 1999, pp. 71-81;

Barbara Evans Clemenys, A History of Women in Russia, Indiana Univ. Press, Bloomington, 2012.

Christine M. Hassenstab and Sabrina Ramet (eds.), Gender (In)equality and Gender Politics in Southeastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Bojan Bilic and Sanja Kajnic (eds.), Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics. Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia, Palgrave MacMillan, London, 2016.

Maurizio Viroli, For Love of Country, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995

Michael Hefferman, The Meaning of Europe. Geography and Geopolitics, Arnold, London, 1998.

George Schöpflin, Nations, Identity, Power, New York Univ. Press, New York, 2000.

Ladislav Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996.

Betty Miller Unterberger, The United States, Revolutionary Russia and the Rise of Czechoslovakia, Texas A&M Univ. Press, College Station, 2000.

Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford Univ., Press, New York, 1995

John Hoffman, Sovereignty, Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1998;

Krzysztof Michalski (ed.), What hold Europe together?, CEU Press, Budapest, 2006;

Anand Menon and Vincent Wright, From the Nation State to Europe?, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2001;

John O’Loughlin, Vladimir Kolossov e Andrei Tchepalyaga, National Construction, Territorial Separatism and Post-Soviet Geopolitics in the Transdniester Moldovan Republic, in «Post-Soviet Geography and Economics», n. 6, 1998, pp. 332-358

Hugh Poulton, The Balkans. Minorities and States in Conflicts, Minority Rights Publication, London, 1994.

Teaching methods

Methodologically, classes are organized interactively. Regular lessons include discussions on the topic of the day and students' acquisition of transversal skills. In particular, students are expected to organize themselves in team-works and make oral presentations of the selected documents with the support of readings, according to the instructions received during classes. Social responsibility toward classmates, ability in addressing the audience, direct focus on the key issues and strictly respect of deadlines are among crucial components of the lessons guided by the Professor. His lesson explanations will help students to understand the historical context and receive additional interpretative inputs aimed to increase their critical thinking.

Assessment methods

Oral exam. Students are expected to analyze and discuss in details the topics that have been developed during classes with appropriate references to the sources offered by the readings. The ability of comparing theoretical approaches and policies implementation will be highly appreciated.

Teaching tools

PowerPoint and overhead projector

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Bianchini