Michel Abesser

The paper analyses Rostov and Nakhichevan on Don as a peculiar case of Russian Imperial urban development between the late eighteenth and early twentieth century. Gradually merging into one urban metropolis, both cities remained separate political entities with their own systems of self-governance and bureaucracies due to economic conjunctures and distinct patterns of migration. By focusing on gravitational and centrifugal factors between the Russian and Armenian communities, the article provides a dynamic perspective on how local elites and communities negotiated the promises of economic prosperity and the emerging challenges of nationalism within a shared multiethnic urban space. The example opens the view for a variety of development paths of cities beyond the "Western European standard case", as urban growth and economic entanglement between the two adjacent cities was not followed by political and administrative unification.

Review of Brian Davis "The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774: Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire", Patrica Herlihy "Odessa recollected: The Port and the People", Ulrich Hofmeister and Kerstin Jobst, eds. "Krimtataren" Special Issue of Österreichische Zeiotschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 28,1, (2017)

During the nineteenth century, the Russian settlement of Rostov and the Armenian colony of Nakhichevan on Don slowly merged into a single urban and economic space. This contribution analyses how these increasingly entangled communities negotiated conflicts and to what extent disputes about trading opportunities and state privileges shaped their urban identities. On the empire's periphery, Armenians, Russians and Cossacks framed their positions with narratives of soslovie, class or religious belonging, until the beginning of the Great Reforms, when the state increasingly levelled differences in administration and economy and growing national sentiments increasingly altered multiethnic communal life.

The article analyses debates on jazz after 1953 through the lens of Soviet national cultures. Within the context of Cultural Cold War and the limited opening of the country, the question of a unique Soviet Jazz quickly gained political relevance. Soviet Estonia, at the multinational
empire’s periphery, was often imagined as the “Soviet West” by contemporaries. The republic was home to a small but well-educated jazz scene that already developed during the time of the anti-western campaigns of the late 1940s. In the post-Stalin period, Party and cultural
elites in Moscow and Leningrad increasingly struggled with a growing number of young jazz enthusiasts that aimed at establishing jazz as art music based on improvisation and influenced by the American model. In these debates on the establishment of a specifically Soviet Jazz, conservative and reform-minded members of the cultural elites envisioned Estonian jazz as an early role model for a number of reasons: Its members were not only highly qualified, but also willing to make traditional Estonian folklore a key element of jazz. What is more, the musicians kept close ties with the Estonian cultural institutions. The growing number of jazz festivals hosted in the Estonian Soviet Republic provided an important public space for the emerging young Soviet jazz culture. At the same time, many Estonian jazz musicians advocated a more critical approach towards improvisation than musicians from Moscow and Leningrad. Their discussions resembled arguments against American superficiality brought forward by party ideologists in the late 1940s. The article questions narratives of jazz as cultural resistance to
political oppression, and argues that a focus on cultural transfer from behind the Iron Curtain is too narrow for explaining the genesis, heterogeneity and durability of late Soviet culture. Greater emphasis on the non-Russian peripheries as cradles of culture can provide us with
more nuanced interpretations on the renewal of Soviet culture after Stalin’ death.

The article discusses Soviet record production and export strategies to the West in the 1950s as part of the cultural Cold War. While the treaty framework for cultural exchange between the Soviet Union and Western States enabled Soviet musicians to perform for Western audiences and thus increased the demand for Russian and Soviet music on the global market, the Soviet economy was neither able to provide records of a sufficient quality for foreign trade nor to satisfy national demand fueled by the regime’s shift towards consumerism after Stalin’s death. The dependency on Western companies as transmitters of Russian and Soviet music became the subject of various discussions between the Central Committee, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Trade. By analysing these discussions the article reveals changing attitudes within top state and party structures towards the necessity of technical modernization and the participation of the Soviet Union in the global music market.

Review of Brian Davis "The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774: Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire", Patrica Herlihy "Odessa recollected: The Port and the People", Ulrich Hofmeister and Kerstin Jobst, eds. "Krimtataren" Special Issue of Österreichische Zeiotschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 28,1, (2017)

Here is my paper on Soviet Estrada Musicians I've presented in the panel "The Working Underbelly: Precarious Lifes in Post-War Socialism" at the ASEEES 2016 in Washington. I'm indebted to Alexandra Oberländer who organized the panel and Aaron Hale-Dorrell and Tomasz Blusiewicz for their thoughful contributions.

Stalins Tod gilt als zentrale Zäsur in der sowjetischen Geschichte – nach 1953 musste die UdSSR sich politisch, wirtschaftlich, sozial und kulturell neu definieren. Dieses Buch führt Beiträge neuester internationaler Forschung zusammen, die kritisch nach Wandel und Kontinuitäten in der Sowjetunion in der Zeit nach Stalin fragen. Deutlich wird dabei, dass die Geschichte der 1950er- und 1960er-Jahre, der Ära des »Tauwetters« unter Nikita Chruschtschow, nicht nur für »Glasnost« und »Perestroika« Michail Gorbatschows, sondern auch für das gegenwärtige Russland Wladimir Putins von zentraler Bedeutung ist.