Marginal Man in Modern Russian Literature

This research was focused around the intersection of two discourses: that of marginality and that of ideology. Ponomarev analysed works by Alexander Zinoviev, Vladimir Maximov and Eduard Limonov - three writers representing different groups of Soviet dissidence - from the viewpoint of the concept, drawn from anthropological theory, of marginal man. Using a methodology he describes as ideological analysis, Ponomarev showed that the ideologies of both the writers and their characters are marginal, lying as they do between official Soviet and western democratic ideologies. He showed that the works and the 'creative behaviour' of the three writers did not change after 1991, when their ideas seemed victorious. Marginality is shown to be a permanent characteristic and is linked with the main ideas of the dissident movement in the USSR. On the basis of this marginality, Ponomarev identified some common traits in dissident ideas and drew up a model of dissident ideology. This general model of dissident ideology seems to be one of the special Russian variants of the marginal ideologies of intelligentsia and could be compared to the ideology of Rodon Raskolnikov, the central character in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. The discourse of ideology in the USSR in the 1970s-1980s and in 1990s Russia thus appeared as a process in which the elements of the official Soviet ideology were gradually superseded by those of the dissident ideology linked with the ideology of the underground, the Russian version of the post-modern. Marginal ideologies won and became mainstream but did not lose their basic marginal traits. Ponomarev concludes that the gap between the 'state ideology' and the dissident ideology, taken together with the special Russian version of postmodernity has shaped the current literary process in Russia, making the figure of the marginal man into the main writer type.

Nationalism and Literature

Zunic investigated the relationship between nationalism and Serbian literature. He first analysed and evaluated the justifications for a number of critical accusations against Serbian literature. These included mythological and epic foundations (traditionalism), an obsession with national history and with the motif of the Serbian people as an eternal victim, the domination of the collective over the individual (populism), an anachronistic romantic conception of the social function of literature. In order to gain an unbiased judgement of the nationalistic role of contemporary Serbian literature, Zunic prepared a list of those books with the greatest number of copies issued in the decade 1985-1995, and constructed an appropriate hermeneutic procedure of understanding the meaning of the content and form of these works. He concluded that contemporary Serbian literature is in fact occupied with national history, and also with the unmasking of communist totalitarianism. The most influential books express and document either nationally-oriented or civil-oriented world views. The former, although mostly not militant works (with their realistic "closed" form), might have had an ideological influence on the Serbian national consciousness, while the civil-oriented works (with their "open" modern or post-modern form) could not neutralise all these extra-literary effects of the nationally-oriented works, since the predominant way of reading is a communication with the literary content (realised as a testimony of historical facts), and not with the literary form (as a carrier of the artistic value and a "moderator" of any content).

Scientific Institutions in a Society of Transition: Strategies of Modernisation

Kristina Petkova (Group Leader), Tzocho Boyadgiev, Galin Gornev, Ivan Tcholakov (Bulgaria), Martin Bauer (Switzerland). Scientific Institutions in a Society of Transition: Strategies of Modernisation. Ms. Petkova is involved in teaching and research in the Institute of Sociology of the Bulgarian Academy of Science and led this project, which was carried out between July 1995 and June 1997. The aims of this project were a) to outline the main adaptive strategies of scientific institutions in a situation of social transition, and b) to analyse the opportunities for mobilising public opinion in support scientific work. The group began from the assumption that the social representation of science reflects the historical development of society as a whole. They developed a theoretical model describing the position of science in the three main types of society in the world today (modern, post-modern, totalitarian) and carried out three types of investigation: a representative survey of the public understanding of scientific institutions in Bulgaria; an in-depth cross-national investigation (Bulgarian - Great Britain); and a content analysis of how science is represented in two national newspapers, the "Rabotnichesko Delo" and the "Daily Telegraph". The results showed that Bulgarian public opinion has a more standard view of science and a more optimistic vision of scientific development than do the British, but that there is a certain insensitivity to the risks of scientific results, etc. The group conclude that in order to survive, scientific institutions in Bulgaria should change their passive attitude and adopt active strategies in both their relationships with the state, and in their contacts with private business and with the institutions of civil society.

The Monumental Barrows of the Period 700-1100 AD at the Russian North-West

Nicholas Petrov. The Monumental Barrows of the Period 700-11 AD in the Russian North-West The research deals with the monumental barrows erected in the Russian north-west in the period of 700-1100 AD, which Russian archaeological literature has traditionally named sopka-barrows. These sopka-barrows were analysed as original sacral and funeral structures and considered in the context of cultural processes under way in that region at the time. The position occupied by the sopka-barrows in the culture of the people who erected them was reconstructed on the basis of a synthesis of various kinds of sources - archaeological, written, folklore. The high barrows are not in fact a determining type of the sites of the so-called "culture of the sopka-barrows" in modern literature, which focuses rather on settlements near to which sopka-barrows are absent. Recent excavations have revealed the presence of "surface" burial places (cremation located on the top of the barrow repeatedly rather than only once) in the majority of the sopka-barrows. The materials only provide evidence about the sacrificial nature of the graves in the "body" of the sopka-barrows. They thus offer an embodiment of one element of the widespread views about the dead man's path to the world of the dead (mountain) which is traced in folklore texts. Special attention was paid to the question of the disappearance of the tradition of erecting sopka-barrows and to the nature of their role in the culture of the region during the period 1000-1200 AD. The functioning of the sopka-barrows as funeral monuments in the second millennium AD is also traced on the inlet inhumatios found in them.

Aggressive Behaviour of Different Social and Demographic Groups in Post-Totalitarian Society

The project looked at aggressiveness in different age and social groups of modern post-totalitarian society, beginning with the hypotheses that the greatest risk groups are teenagers and the unemployed, and that there is a link between aggression and the level of meaningfulness of life. The groups studied comprised about 200 persons from urban areas of eastern Ukraine, including schoolchildren, students, white collar workers, self-employed persons, the unemployed and pensioners. Workers in industry were not included as this group has virtually disappeared in Ukraine at present since most enterprises have ceased to work and most workers have moved into the groups of the unemployed or self-employed. Participants were divided into age groups of 13-14, 16-17, 18-22, 24-45, 46-60 and over 60, with each group including approximately equal number of men and women. Research methods included Buss-Darky techniques, the "hand test" (E. Wagner), the "non-existent animal" technique, a Rozenzweig picture frustration study, purpose-in-life tests and an interview. The Buss-Darky test showed that schoolchildren have the highest level of aggression, followed by students. These groups have high indexes in virtually all types of aggression, including its open form. The self-employed have relatively lower indexes, although they are more likely to manifest it openly, while such open manifestations are less likely among white-collar workers, pensioners and the unemployed. The least aggressive were the unemployed and pensioners, although the latter had a relatively high level of hostility. In terms of age, aggression was shown to decrease with age, which Ms. Ivanova attributes to the still imperfect control mechanisms of teenagers and their less mature personalities. Among the younger groups girls showed a slightly higher level of aggression, although this situation was reversed among older people. The risk groups inclined to manifest open forms of aggressiveness can therefore be seen to be teenagers and students. Other tests used show aggressiveness as a feature of the current state, rather than as an inherent feature and the results obtained were somewhat different. In the interviews, all adults referred to the increased aggressiveness in society and most stated that they themselves had become more aggressive and bad-tempered. The ability of individuals to adapt to their social environment was also investigated and schoolchildren turned out to have the lowest adaptation index and the unemployed the highest. MS. Ivanova attributes that latter, rather surprising, result to the fact that the constant frustrations facing the unemployed force them to actively seek ways and means of adapting in order to survive. The final aspect considered was the possible connection between human aggressiveness and the meaningfulness of life. Here the groups with the most meaningful lives were the self-employed and pensioners. The latter result, again rather surprising, was attributed to the desire of people who have already lived the greater part of their lives to place more weight on what they have already done, in order to prove to themselves that they have not lived in vain. The hypothesis that aggressiveness is conversely related to the meaningfulness of life was only partially confirmed. In the two extreme cases (schoolchildren and pensioners) this was indeed the case, but the remaining groups did not show any such connection. From the data obtained, Ms. Ivanova concluded that life in modern post-totalitarian society does indeed foster a rise in people's aggressiveness, and this was supported by the fact that indexes of aggressiveness proved to be higher than the norm. Her original hypothesis as to the groups in society most at risk from open aggression confirmed in the case of teenagers but not of the unemployed, who had relatively low aggressiveness indexes and the highest degree of adaptation.

Family Anomie and Juvenile Deliquency in Post-Communist Romania

The sensitivity of crime rates to social, economic and political influences has long aroused the interest of sociologists who have attempted to explain what kind of relationships might be associated with variations in crime rates between different social groups at different times. The earliest views were put forward by Emil Durkheim, and while later writers have developed (R.K. Merton, L. Srole, A, K. Cohen, etc.) have developed some aspects of his ideas further, his basic ideas of the divorce of the individual from normative standards and the lack of social integration are still valid. Ms. Voicu-Minea looked at the theoretical background in detail but then limited it to a specific social group, the family, asking first why certain individual within vulnerable families and/or negative social influences commit offences while others do not. In modern times the family has undergone massive structural and functional changes. Its former economic function, which once endowed it with a great capacity for social inclusion, has generally vanished, while its formerly crucial role in children's education has been massively reduced. These changes, which are still not complete, can lead to dysfunction and in certain social contexts such as that in post-communist Romanian society, this risk of dysfunction is still greater as unfavourably social circumstances more easily affect such families. The number of cases of juvenile delinquency in Romania has increased sharply ever since the end of the communist system and in 1996 reached the level of 18,317 cases. The sample examined included 1012 juvenile delinquents aged between 14 and 18, taken from all areas of Bucharest. Over 80% of charges related to theft, with more serious offences being relatively rare. The children underwent a series of psychological tests, accompanied by a questionnaire relating to family situation. The results showed that juvenile delinquency in Romania is overwhelmingly male, with 91.8% of offences being committed by boys. Two thirds of the research group were under the age of 16 and only just over one third attended school, with over half having left school before the legal age. While the majority of subjects had a lower than average level of education, they did not always recognise this, with two thirds seeing their level of education as being as good as or better than average. Nearly half the children (43%) did not live with both natural parents and majority came from families with three or more children. This applied both to their original families and to the families in which they were living at the time of the survey. The overwhelming majority of families were living in or around Bucharest, but under one third originated from there. Almost 25% of parents were under-schooled and around one third were unqualified workers. At least 30% of families lived in inadequate accommodation and family incomes were generally low. Ms. Voicu-Minea does however point out that over half the minors from the sample saw their family income as satisfactory or even more than satisfactory. When factors such as bad relationships between parents, corporal punishment, alcohol consumption and criminal records of family members were taken into account, the picture was bleak, making it understandable why over 36% of subjects had run away from home at least once, and in many cases repeatedly and for longer periods. The overwhelming majority of offences (80.8%) were committed in groups of between 2 and 11 persons, usually "friends" but in about 10% of cases member's of the family. IQ tests put about 75% of the sample at slightly under average, the difference being too slight to account for the behaviour problems of the majority. Personality tests, however, showed a different picture. Over 70% of those tested manifested an acute need of tenderness and a similar number a high level of potential aggressiveness. Almost half of the minors expressed such feelings as intolerance or a desire for revenge, and Ms. Voicu-Minea found a clear weakness of the Self. Around half the sample expressed sentiments of abandonment, renunciation and solitude.