A typology of the Baltic region states according to excellence in science and technology
Global manufacturing systems function in such a way that countries develop industrial specialisation, which leads to territorial disparities. The countries of the Baltic region are no exception despite their strong economic ties and developed industries. A significant element of any manufacturing system is its scientific and technological subsystem, which is described in this article for ten countries (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia)...
Population change and the settlement system transformation in Poland, as revealed by the 2021 census
This article aims to analyse current geodemographic changes in Poland, based on the data of the 2021 National Population and Housing Census. Methods, traditional for socioeconomic geography, such as zoning, were employed. Poland’s population decreased during the inter-census period (2011—2021), with the urban population declining faster than its rural counterpart. The large voivodeships aligned along the Vistula ‘axis’ — Mazowiecka, Lesser Poland and Pomerania — outperform other Polish...
Bogdan Kistiakovy’s Project of “State of the Future” as Synthesis of the Ideas of Liberalism and Socialism
This article is devoted to the correlation between liberal and socialist ideas in the social and philosophical conception of the prominent methodologist of social sciences and a Neo-Kantian legal theorist Bogdan Kistyakovsky. The author stresses the uncertainty of both the definition of liberalism and the principles behind attributing concrete thinkers to this movement. The article emphasises the inconsistency of classifying Kistyakovsky’s socio-philosophical concept as liberal. The analysis performed...
Socio-spatial differentiation in transition: a preliminary comparative analysis of post-soviet St Petersburg and Riga
Research into the socio-spatial dynamics in Central-Eastern European cities is an im-portant area of contemporary transition studies. Open issues in this domain range from defining a theoretical framework to data availability and methodological approaches. As to the former aspect, recent literature focuses on the hybrid nature of the post-socialist urban space, which underwent transformation in the conditions of globalization and eco-nomic liberalization; the earlier model of spatial development...
Georges Gurvitch and Sergey Hessen on the Possibility of Forming Social Unity
The early decades of the last century saw European philosophical thought becoming increasingly interested in the sociological extension of the idea of law. From the viewpoint of the sociology of law, law is formed in the process of social interactions and is not sanctioned by the state. Sergey Hessen and Georges Gurvitch base their conceptions of social law on the sociology of law in the 1920s and 1930s. They start a polemic in the pages of the journal Sovremenniye zapiski (Contemporary Notes). Although...
Natural Increase in the Baltic South and South-West
This article analyses the natural population increase (decrease) in the postcommunist part of Baltic Europe (the federated state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian, and Warmian-Masurian Voivodeships, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Kaliningrad and Leningrad region, and the federal city of Saint Petersburg) in 2002—2011. The study uses standard methods of demographic analysis, the data provided by national statistical services and Eurostat. All regions analysed are characterised...
The influence of S.T. Shatsky’s pedagogical views on the organization of children’s life during the formation of the pioneer organization (1922—1929)
The article studies the organization of the pioneer movement from the perspective of the educational process, allowing for the identification of valuable experience for further use in modern conditions, when a new stage of development of children’s organizations is observed in the Russian Federation. Despite the primary goal of ideological education in the pioneer organization, its activities reflected comprehensive elements such as play, labor education, art, and social education. According to...
Professor Friedrich Münzer in Königsberg
The article presents a brief biography of Friedrich Münzer (1868—1942), a prominent German historian of Antiquity, a expert in Roman political history. Throughout his life, Münzer taught at the universities of Basel, Königsberg, and Münster, demonstrating high creative activity and publishing numerous works on ancient history. His fate was tragic. Münzer became one of the victims of the National Socialist regime in Germany and died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The “Königsberg...
The legal regulation of agricultural cooperation during the period of the Provisional Government and Soviet Russia
The study examines the transformation of the legal status of agricultural cooperatives in Russia from the period when the Provisional Government came to power to 1929, the period when this type of cooperation was liquidated as a separate entity. The study demonstrates changes in cooperative legislation after the February Revolution of 1917 until the late 1920s — from expanding the democratic foundations of cooperative societies to the complete abolition of agricultural cooperation as a separate...
The border as a barrier and an incentive for the structural economic transformation of the Kaliningrad exclave
This paper aims to study how geopolitical shifts affect regional economies and their structures. Border functions and regimes act as tools for the economy and society to adapt to the redistribution of political influence, movements of people, goods, capital and information between integration associations, individual countries and their cores. A changed environment may slow down the development of some industries (and even cause them to decline) and give a boost to others, with these two processes...
The Accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO: Geopolitical implications for Russia’s position in the Baltic Sea region
The article examines Sweden’s and Finland’s motives for ending their long-time non-aligned policies and joining NATO after Russia had launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The two countries’ decision is shown to be in the interest of the United States, which has always sought to fill the geopolitical vacuum reigning after the collapse of the opposing Soviet bloc and the Soviet Union itself. Finland and Sweden were the missing links for Washington and NATO in the...
The Visegrad Group and the Baltic Assembly: coalitions within the EU as seen through Russian foreign policy
Today Russia has difficulty doing business-as-usual with EU states. It seems that the countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) and the Baltic Assembly/Baltic Council of Ministers (BA/BСM) have contributed substantially to this state of affairs. Overall, the tensions between Russia and the EU are building up – another tendency that did not arise on the Russian initiative. This article aims to address the question of whether Russia should establish direct relations with the V4 and the BA/BCM as tools...
France’s strategy in the Baltic region: military and political aspects
This article examines the current military-political strategy of France in the Baltic region. This area has not traditionally been among the main priorities of French diplomacy. However, under President Emmanuel Macron, France pays closer attention to the Baltic Sea due to the growing tension between Russia and the West. According to France’s key strategic documents, the government assesses the present-day situation mainly in a negative way, considering Russian actions as the main reason for the...
The two-party tendency in Poland’s political system: manifestations, causes and prospects
The article analyses the Polish political system and the increasing role of two political parties in it. This tendency has been observed in Poland for more than 15 years. We can draw a conclusion that two-and-a-half-party system has formed in Poland. Using Duverger’s phrasing, there is a “two-party tendency” in the functioning of the Polish model. The study analyses the facts that firm up this conclusion: not only the distribution of seats in the Sejm (the main criterion) but also many other...
The CPSU and the CPC: comparative aspects of the historical and cultural approach
The comparison of the ideas and activities of the CPC and the party that formally ended its activities in Russia under the name of the CPSU is relevant for analyzing the prospects of the socialist, communist way of development. At the same time, in our opinion, it is important to consider the cultural, historical, and cultural aspects of such a comparison. The methodology of the research is connected in this case precisely to the historical description of the main stages of development, the nature...
Actualization of the dialectical unity of “Friend-foe” in the ideological attitudes of G. Radtke’s novel “Die Tätowierten”
The article analyzes the actualization of the dialectical unity of “friend-foe” on the example of the German-language novel G. Radtke “Die Tätowierten”for young adults. The study relies on the research of the ideological attitudes of the GDR through the analysis of theoretical sources, the method of continuous sampling, linguistic analysis of contextual blocks of the story, and establishes the spheres of human activity that represent the rejection of the values of a hostile ideology: appearance...
Translation Historiography
The article offers an overview of the development of translation history during the past decade. It focuses on recent debates, research areas and methodological avenues in translation history with special emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Driven by a move away from a Euro-centric view of translation, researchers have become interested in producing connected and comparative histories of translation. The dialogue with the general field of history has led to the adoption of new methods and forms of analysis...
Innovative development of rural settlements of the Leningrad region
The geography of modern innovation processes increasingly covers not only megalopolises and large industrial cities, but also rural areas. The issue of innovative development of the countryside has acquired particular prominence in the context of securing human capital and preventing the marginalization of rural settlements, though creating a favorable environment for life and business in particular. At the initial stage, the innovation of rural areas is associated with the diffusion and implementation...
Impact of remigration on the worksphere under Covid-19: the case of Lithuania
Remigration opens up the opportunity for a country to see the return of its citizens from migration, bringing with them their ideas, knowledge, values and skills. The work sphere is one of the main areas where these social remittances can be used. Still, very little attention is paid to the workplace in social remittance literature. Therefore, the first aim of this article is to explore the types of remigrants’ social remittances, the ways they are transmitted and their acceptance in the work sphere...
Work-life balance during the Covid-19 outbreak: the case of Latvia
This paper aims to shed light on work-life balance in Latvia during the state of emergency. The Covid-19 outbreak has led many governments to introduce lockdowns. While imposed restrictions may help to contain the spread of the virus, they may also result in substantial damage to population well-being. The Covid-19 outbreak in Latvia demonstrates the extent and ways in which socio-demographics factors have determined different patterns of behaviour, attitudes, employment changes and harmonised work...
The theory of peripheral capitalism: on the applicability of the Latin American model to the Baltic States. An attempt at an inter-disciplinary analysis
The relevance of this study of post-Soviet transition lies in the focus on the technically theoretical problems that are nevertheless the key to understanding regional development processes in the East of the Baltic Sea. The research aims to verify the theory of peripheral capitalism as applied to the Baltic States. The first theoretical objective is to draw a distinction between the ideas of modernisation and transformation in a regional context. The second objective is to adjust the theory of peripheral...
Moral und Dogma: Alois Riehls Neukantianismus im Spannungsfeld zwischen Religion und Politik
The aim is to examine Alois Riehl’s contribution to the “culture war” (Kulturkampf) in the second half of the nineteenth century. We show that he used Kant’s autonomy principle to argue against the idea that religious dogmatism is a fundament of morality. We prove this thesis by focusing on the forgotten historical background, which is important for an understanding of Morals und Dogma. Originally this essay was an expert opinion for the court case of the socialist H. Tauschinski who was...
Two civilizations: the relations of Russia and Western Europe at the beginning of the 21st century
The challenges of building relations between two different civilizations, which Samuel Huntington and Lev Gumilev wrote about, are currently becoming more obvious due to the cardinal geopolitical and geoeconomic changes that have taken place since the demise the USSR and the world socialist system. Today, in the West, as if in contrast to the famous project by Charles de Gaulle —“Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals”, an extremely negative image of Russia is being formed. Western ideologists...
On the situation of crimes related to drug trafficking in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Crimes related to drug trafficking present a serious problem to modern society. Since 1986, comprehensive reforms have been carried out in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) in all spheres of life, including politics, economy, culture, etc., to create and develop market economy and the rule of law in the country. High crime rate poses a significant danger to the state. Drug trafficking is one of the most serious crimes in Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi and the Vietnamese border provinces. The author analyses...
Reminiscences of Russian culture in A. S. Byatt’s novel The Children’s Book
Having considered one of the interviews, given by A. S. Byatt, the author concludes that the writer’s attitude to Russia is largely mediated by the Russian literature from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to Pelevin. The researcher brings forward the problem of mythologization and demythologization of the image of Russia, and stresses the fact, that the fictional (Tatarinov) and real (Stepnyak, Kropotkin) images of Russian anarchists are given in the perception of the British. The author comes to the conclusion...
On the Responsibility of the Ideas of Legal Positivism for Doctrinal Support for National Socialism in Germany
In this article, I analyse a concept proposed within German legal science, namely that of the responsibility of legal positivism for promoting National Socialism in the 20th century. An analysis of relevant works by German and Russian legal scholars has shown that the concept rests on false premises and the ideas of positivism had no influence on the criminal National Socialist regime.
1. Дельфинов А. В МВД ФРГ и ГДР было больше бывших нацистов, чем...
Actor-based network theory in the context of ideology and political ontology
The aim of this research is to consider the possibility of applying actornetwork theory (STS) to political processes. The authors analyze B. Latour’s criticism of the traditional political science and sociological approaches to the understanding of different spheres through the prism of ideology and interest. The initial assumptions and main arguments of the actor-network theory are compared with the post-Marxist theory of hegemony by E. Laclau and C. Mouffe. The conclusion draws attention to the...
Introducing Sectoral Models into Regional Management: An Assessment of Regulatory Impacts on the Economy
Regardless of the geography of regions, management at the regional level, both in Russia and the Baltic Sea countries, faces many challenges. Hence, it is necessary to search for new effective economic management tools, since traditional approaches and modeling practices at the regional level are not suitable for either analysing various types of impact on regional economy (production, market (product), sector, region), or assessment of their consequences and identification of the necessary measures...
Economic Development of the Baltic and Nordic Countries: Characteristics of Еconomic Models
Economic development models are crucial for understanding historical progress of countries and in forecasting their future economic prospects. The Nordic countries are connected with the Baltics through culture, history, politics, and economy. These states have a common interest of ensuring stability, security, and welfare in the Baltic region. This article strives to answer the question as to why the Nordic model of economic development is acclaimed internationally for the effective use of national...
The politics of memory in Klaipėda at the turn of 1940—1950s (based on the materials of the Sovetskaya Klaipeda newspaper)
Based on the materials of the Sovetskaya Klaipeda newspaper, this article explores manifestations of the politics of memory pursued in Klaipėda and the whole West Lithuania region during the second half of the 1940s—the first half of the 1950s. The author identifies the main institutions responsible for creating a specific image of the past in Lithuanian society during late Stalinism. Based on newspaper articles, the author demonstrates the coexistence of various figures of memory, which were...
Geopolitical and Geo-economic Changes in the Baltic Sea Region at the Turn of the XX—XXI centuries
The article describes the process and results of the geopolitical and geoeconomic changes in the Baltic Sea region at the turn of the XX and XXI centuries. The authors assess the political, economic and military potential of individual countries and groups of countries. Ranking the selected countries and grouping them according to the similarity of their characteristics requires a variety of methods — the economic, statistical, cartographic, graphic-analytical methods, to name just a few. In the...
Framework for the Analysis of Geography of Transnational Corporations Investments Abroad
This article develops a methodology for studying the geography of companies — an area of human geography that remains understudied in Russia. The authors refer to foreign direct investment (FDI) studies to stress the importance of analysing individual transnational corporations. Special attention is paid to FDI statistics, including international statistics provided by IMF, OECD, and UNCTAD, the official data of central banks on FDI destinations, and information on companies’ assets by geographical...
The works of Stefan Kieniewicz as seen by modern Polish historians
The article considers the critique of the works of historian Stefan Kieniewicz by modern Polish researchers. The author analyses his role in the Polish historical science. Special attention is paid to the reasons behind Kieniewicz’s turn to Marxism after the Second World War. The author gives examples of differences in the persepctive of historiographers on the historian’s methodological views and the degree to which they were influenced by Marxism. S. Kieniewicz’s characteristic of his own...
The US marine fleet in the context of lend-lease deliveries to Great Britain and the USSR during World War II : the development programme and travel routes
This article focuses on the formation and implementation of the programmе of development of US fleet during World War II for providing military and economic support to the anti-Hitler coalition — Great Britain and the USSR. The author considers the most typical projects of marine transport vessels built at US shipyards, the main routes of travel from the USA and Great Britain to the USSR in the framework of the end-lease programme.
1. Блэйр К. Подводная война Гитлера...
Eastern Europe. On the centenary of the political project
This article describes the characteristics of Eastern Europe as a political pro-ject. The author considers the genesis of Eastern Europe as a political region and identifies several periods in its history. The author analyses key features of sover-eignization- desovereignization of the region and examines geopolitical projects of Intermarium. It is shown that Eastern Europe as such is an objective reality, whose history has not ended. At the same time, the author advances and proves the thesis that...
Russian Socio-Economic Geography: Status, Challenges, Perspectives
The socio-economic geography studies the processes, characteristics and patterns of spatial development. In the recent decades, however, this area of scientific investigation has failed its promise, which happened for a number of external and internal reasons. The main external reason is the development of "consumer society", which does not require the search of new space and therefore ignores the "spatial" science, geography. Internal reason is the blurring of socio-economic...
The Baltics and Russian North-West: the Core and the Periphery in the 2000s
This article analyses population changes in North-West regions of Russia (the former North-Western economic zone and the Kaliningrad region) and the Baltics at the level of urban districts and municipalities. The cohort component method is used to analyze the youth population dynamics in the administrative territorial units of this level, which makes it possible to estimate the international (intraregional) migration of this population group. This method is used quite rarely, yet it is more accurate...
The historical aspects and current issues of the development of Russian-Lithuanian economic relations
This article focuses on development of Russian-Lithuanian economic ties. The research and practical significance of this study lies in the identification of the sources of modern Russian-Lithuanian economic cooperation and the prospects of future mutually beneficial economic relations. The first attempt at establishing economic relations was made in 1919. However, young Lithuanian Republic gravitated towards the West, severing ties with the Russian market. However, the initiatives of Lithuanian authorities...
Episodes of the Klaipeda/Memel Anschluss in March, 1939
This article discusses the complicated diplomatic relations between Lithuania and Germany in 1938—1939 on the basis of archive documents and historical studies. The author identifies the methods used by the Germans in the Klaipėda region in order to destroy the system established by the Treaty of Versailles, propagate national socialist ideas among the population, and spread a positive attitude to the restoration of the region as a part of the German Reich. The author offers a detailed analysis...