Pegin Nikolai

CORRUPTION AS POLITICAL PROBLEM: WHO, HOW AND WHY FIGHTS CORRUPTION IN RUSSIA

The article is devoted to analyzing the reasons that encouraged actualization of the corruption topic in the Russian society. Tying the evolution of anticorruption discourse to the twists and turns of the post-Soviet Russian political history, the authors show why corruption that was so obvious in the 1990s was neither purposefully curbed nor even viewed as an acute problem, whereas in the 2000s, when there was significantly less corruption in its legal understanding, all of a sudden it moved to the front of the public opinion and then, in the 2010s, it transformed from being a social and economic problem that it used to be during the whole previous time period, into the highly important political problem.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2012-67-4-89-103

BIROBIDJAN: BETWEEN “POTEMKIN’S VILLAGE” AND NATION-BUILDING

The article describes the processes of nation-building taking place in the Amur River Region in 1920–1930s that resulted in the emergence of the Jewish Autonomous Province. Having analyzed in details twists and turns of the struggle surrounding the idea of the “Jewish autonomy” and instruments employed for its formation, the authors demonstrate that in contrast to the conventional wisdom, “Project of Birobidjan” was not only the means of propagandistic influence over the international community or the way to attract investments from the international Jewish organizations. They conclude that it was a unique attempt to build a “secular” Jewish state based on such mechanisms as artistic culture, construction of history and commonality of fate created by immigration.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-60-1-117-134