Soviet jurists are engaged in the task of drafting new codes of law for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Constitution of the U.S.S.R., adopted in 1936, initiated the activity. It altered the principle incorporated in the first Constitution of the U.S.S.R. that codes of law were the concern of the constituent Republics. The federal government's powers were limited by the first Constitution of the U.S.S.R. to “establishing principles of judicature and legal procedure as well as principles of civil and criminal legislation for the Union;” “enacting basic labor laws” and “establishing general principles for the development and use of the soil as well as the exploitation of the mineral deposits, forests, and bodies of water throughout the entire territory of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

As social and cultural historians have known for some time now, court records can yield rich rewards. Judicial proceedings, particularly those involving defendants with a good story to tell, can illuminate issues and mentalities—indeed whole cosmologies—that otherwise are beyond the purview of later generations. The more irreconcilable the narratives of prosecution and defense, the better, for their very irreconcilability is what provides historians with the opportunity for intervention and partial, albeit posthumous, vindication of the accused. But while the Soviet juridical system has been the subject of considerable scholarly attention, almost all of it has been animated by political- or legal-historical questions. Little use has been made of trial proceedings and related materials to explore what they might reveal about other dimensions of Soviet life.

The Stalinist revolution began to accelerate in Poland, as throughout eastern Europe, in 1947, with the implementation of multi-year plans, the repression of opposition and the enforcement of unity in the bloc; by the beginning of 1950, the transformation of the bloc was more or less complete. The construction of the Stalinist system did not occur in a vacuum but was shaped in part by societies, and the regimes which emerged were thus more complex than has been generally acknowledged. That complexity stems in part from Stalinist regimes’ interest in transforming society through mobilization and integration, rather than merely subduing it. Active participation in political and economic life was required; mere acquiescence to the demands of the regime was insufficient; and class conflict was to be eliminated, replaced by an alliance between the working class and its former adversaries.

In his article, "Schindler's Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers," Robert Hayden combines comparative history, political commentary, and amoral realism. In the process, he presents a number of arguments with which it is difficult to disagree, but also many that are provocative and, indeed, offensive. Because Hayden makes so many arguments in this piece (both primary, secondary, and parenthetical; explicit and implicit; open and disguised) my critique will not follow the organization of his paper. Rather, it will challenge Hayden's article on three counts: 1) its factual accuracy; 2) its lack of reference to existing literature on the topic; and 3) the logic, validity, and moral consequences of its arguments.

No culture enjoys a perfect integration or a static equilibrium of its component traits. The diffusion of features of culture is a constant and crucial dynamic process. Acculturation, as a process of change dominated by the mutual influence of different cultures in close contact, is especially suited to interdisciplinary scrutiny. The study of acculturation is equally challenging for the linguist, the ethnographer, the anthropologist, and the historian interested in investigating processes and forms of cultural change, cultural integration, and causes for the selective receptivity of cultures.

The multinational character of Soviet society against the background of its socioeconomic and ideological homogeneity renders a special quality to the dynamic tension between unity and diversity, especially with regard to culture, cultural change, and integration. Consequently, an investigation of acculturation as a component of the broader ethnic processes is not only justified, but imperative.

As a consequence of the 17 April 1905 law on religious freedom, hundreds of baptized Jews petitioned to return to Judaism. While the law paralleled the liberalization of the attitudes and values regarding religious differences that occurred in European societies between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, the reform also helped destabilize traditional social boundaries and religious identities in the empire. On one level, this essay examines the conflicts and problems authorities faced in categorizing a Jewish population that continually resisted conventional assumptions. In the context of rapid population movements, political and religious reforms, and increased acculturation, what it meant to be “Jewish” was redefined, and administrators needed to establish an acceptable criterion by which (baptized) Jews could be classified. On another level, this essay draws on individual petitions and government correspondence to analyze the personal choices and social dilemmas that baptized Jews faced when they attempted to return to Judaism.

Speaking recently about the impact of Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost’ on Russian culture, the exiled Russian scientist Zhores Medvedev expressed skepticism about the artistic benefits of the reforms, comparing them unfavorably to those ushered in by Khrushchev's liberalization: “Whereas Khrushchev's thaw brought many new names and new talents into literature, no new talents have emerged in the past two years.“' Medvedev's statement suggests that he has not been reading Soviet literary journals assiduously. Otherwise he would have noticed the emergence of at least one remarkably talented newcomer on the literary scene—Tat'iana Tolstaia, the most gifted young woman writing fiction in Russia today and arguably the most noteworthy prosaist of the young generation at large.

For forty eventful years, ending with the outbreak of the First World War, the Young Czech Party waged an unremitting struggle on behalf of Czech national interests within the limited constitutional framework of the Hapsburg Monarchy. Political activity for such a span of time would be enough to insure the party a niche in history, but in addition it dominated Czech politics for sixteen of those years and enlisted politicians of the caliber of Kaizl, Kramář, Rašín, and briefly Masaryk under its banner in their quest for elective office. The intent of this article is to evaluate the party's contributions to the development of the modern Czech political system by outlining its history and general orientation and by comparing party platforms with achievements.

Since the inception in 1954 of Soviet economic aid to non-Communist underdeveloped countries, commitments have grown to over $6 billion and deliveries to $2.7 billion. Concomitantly an extensive literature on the subject has emerged. Per unit of aid money, the attention paid to the Soviet programs is much greater than for a comparable flow of resources from other countries. Undoubtedly circumstances that go beyond conventional considerations about international capital flows are responsible for this interest. Writers take various approaches, such as the motives of the donor, contract terms, contribution to the development of recipient countries, impact on alignment with bloc politics, and so on. With few exceptions the investigators attempt, one way or another, to estimate the payoffs accruing to the donor from such international transfer of resources. Yet there is no comprehensive record that could serve as a basis for the numerous appraisals and evaluations. Ironically, at the milestone of one and a half decades of Soviet aid activities the "authentic" sources on the subject still use varying figures.

Jerzy Kawalerowicz told reporters that he made his 1982 film, Austeria (The inn) to commemorate the Polish-Jewish people and culture destroyed in the Holocaust. This non-Jewish Polish director, known best in the west for his Mother Joanna of the Angels (a depiction of death and possession at a medieval French convent), grew up among Jews in the eastern part of Poland. He had been struck by the Polish-Jewish author Julian Stryjkowski's 1966 novella, Austeria, a haunting depiction of Jewish life in Galicia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Kawalerowicz—with Stryjkowski—immediately decided to turn the book into a movie. After the Six-Day War in 1967 sparked an “anti-Zionist campaign” in Poland, however, the Polish government found the Jewish topic of their screenplay “politically unacceptable.” In 1981, the film was granted permission and funding. It was completed in 1982, following the crackdown on Solidarity and the imposition of martial law. The authorities allowed its distribution, having determined that it displayed “humanitarian values” and that it did not represent a political threat. In the capacity of a quasiofficial expression of Polish regret at the passing of the Jews, and perhaps as a demonstration of liberalism aimed at the western critics of the new regime, Austeria was widely promoted and exported to film festivals abroad.

“Devil” is a key piece in Tsvetaeva's “anti-Eden” cycle of autobiographical prose, a phrase I have coined to describe her rewriting of both the creation myth of Genesis and its Russian incarnation in the Arcadian boyhoods of Tolstoi and Aksakov. In the series of memoirs which she wrote in the 1930s, she reworked the male myth to reflect twentieth century female experience and, most importantly, to inscribe her selfdefinition as poet.

In the years after 1905, Social Democrats in Russia agonized over the form of struggle in which to engage. The defeats suffered in the revolution and the new legal possibilities offered after 1905 led to strains among the socialists and changed considerably the nature of their debates from the prerevolutionary years as each faction attempted to deal with the potential of a legal labor movement and the actuality of continued police repression. Paradoxically the years of “reaction” were also the seedbed of Russian trade unionism. Many Social Democrats, most notably the so-called likvidatory (“liquidators”), believed that the time had come to concentrate on the legal labor movement, to broaden its appeal and deepen its roots among the working class. Others, tied to the traditions of the underground party and the primacy of political work, opposed the new reliance on legal activity. All Social Democrats inside Russia were faced with the reality of economic depression, a decline in labor activism, and political repression. They faced together a strategic dilemma. The deeper they retreated into the underground, the more tenuous their ties with the workers became. Yet the more actively they engaged in trade unionist and other legal activities, the more vulnerable they were to police persecution.

The remote location of Beshankovichy's mass grave for Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide reflects the exclusion of local Jews during the German occupation of Soviet territories and limits their memory to a few knowledgeable survivors and witnesses. In contrast, local commemorative practices focus on memorials for Soviet soldiers, partisans, and their aides. The paper reveals an incongruence of the place of historical experience on the one hand, and the locale of popular commemoration on the other, highlighting the impact of the Holocaust in Belarus to destroy Jewish history and its memory. The spatial division reflects the trauma of loss as much as shame for local participation in the mass murder. Drawing on oral histories, archival materials, and field visits, the study builds on a growing field of scholarship on the role of space and place in the construction of memories and identities in the aftermath of atrocity and trauma to discuss the geographical dimensions of memory and amnesia.