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Societal Manipulation in a Multiethnic Polity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

John A. Armstrong
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

The chill that descended on innovative Soviet belletristic literature (and some kinds of historiography) in the post-Khrushchev era has had, as far as the outsider can determine, relatively little effect on social science publication. To avoid misunderstanding, I should hasten to add that social science has always been restricted in the U.S.S.R., on the whole more seriously than belles lettres and history. Whether for this or other reasons, the bulk of what passes for social science among Soviet publications is dreary. Even outstanding social scientists such as Iurii Arutiunian are censured occasionally. In chronological perspective, however, the best work in social science has, I think, shown a continuous evolution since the Stalinist era.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1976

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References

1 There are excellent bibliographies and guides for the Sovietologist pursuing research concentrating on the U.S.S.R. For the non-Sovietologist interested in a field clearly defined in a rather conventional way, Absees (Soviet and East European Abstracts Series, Glasgow, 1970-, quarterly) provides good, brief resumes of many books and articles from the U.S.S.R. The unequaled translation service of the Current Digest of the Soviet Press (Columbus, Ohio, 1949Google Scholar, weekly), with its outstanding indexes, tells the specialist where to turn in the daily and periodical press. For the scholar with interests cutting across conventional boundaries (I believe this applies especially to political scientists engaged in the kind of comparative study described below) these guides, while useful, are unlikely to point the way to the small but significant number of book-length studies in Russian which are most apt to engage his concentrated and prolonged attention—as contrasted to works, long and short, which merely provide a bit of factual documentation. Unfortunately, the leading English-language professional journals in political science and international affairs have not done much to remedy this neglect. In contrast, for example, to the American Historical Review, which provides reasonably comprehensive reviews of the major Soviet historiography, commentary on Russian-language materials in the political science journals has been haphazard at best.

2 Brass, Paul R., Language, Religion, and Politics in North India (London: Cambridge University Press 1974)Google Scholar.

3 Dickinson, City, Region and Regionalism (New York: Oxford University Press 1947)Google Scholar; Hammond, The City in the Ancient World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1972)Google Scholar; Russell, , Medieval Regions and their Cities (Newton Abbot: David and Charles 1972)Google Scholar; Christaller, , Die zentralen Orte in Siid-Deutschland (Jena: G. Fischer 1933)Google Scholar.

4 E.g., Castro, Americo, The Spaniards, trans, by King, Willard F. and Mar-garetten, Selma (Berkeley: University of California Press 1971)Google Scholar; Steinbach, F., Studien zur westdeutschen Stamm— und Volk sgeschichte (Jena: G. Fischer 1926)Google Scholar; Dhondt, J., Etudes sur la Naissance des Principautes Territoriales en France (Bruges: De Tempel 1948)Google Scholar.

5 Nikonov's data, incidentally, justify Alexander Ill's generalization (if not his bias) in insisting that his diplomatic corps should be dominated by “real Russians” with names ending in “ov” and “in” instead of the semi-alien “skii.”