Legal but Criminal: The Failure of the "Russian Nuremberg" and the Paradoxes of Post-Soviet Memory
In post-Soviet studies there has been a consistent tendency to look at the contemporary political and cultural situation in Russia in terms of the failure of democratic revolution as well as the rise of authoritarianism. On account of this tendency, nostalgia for the Soviet past has become one of the most popular topics in current research. Thus, for example, many shows and films and a lot of popular music thrive on the nostalgic veneration of the Soviet era.1 The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, despite its common association with an older generation of retired workers, is increasingly becoming popular among young people.2 According to a nationwide poll of the country’s most celebrated Russians conducted by the state television channel, Rossiia 1, in 2008, Stalin was voted Russia’s third most popular historical figure. Furthermore, in October 2009, a Russian court held a hearing in a libel case brought by Stalin’s grandson Yevgeny Dzhugashvili over a newspaper story published in Novaya gazeta that said Stalin had ordered the killings of Soviet citizens. The libel case was dismissed, of course, yet the very fact of its occurrence is highly symptomatic of the overall grotesqueness of the current state of the collective memory of the Soviet legacy. There are, however, certain positive signs, such as President Medvedev’s appointment of Mikhail Fedotov in October 2010 as a presidential adviser and the chairman of the Human Rights Council of the Russian Federation.3 Fedotov in turn proposed the de-Stalinization of the public conscience as the most urgent issue to work on in the council. Russia’s nostalgic clinging to the “Soviet Golden Age,” associated primarily with its imperial politics commanding international respect and the state’s protection of each and every citizen, is commonly explained by
Reforming the Russian legal system
Preface 1. Pre-revolutionary Russian law 2. The Bolshevik experience 3. The history of legal reform 4. Forging a new constitution 5. Citizens and the state: the debate over the Procuracy 6. In search of a just system: the courts and judicial reform 7. Law and the transition to a market economy 8. Legal reform in the republics 9. Legal reform and the transition to democracy in Russia Appendix Notes Index.
Pharmacokinetics and Metabolism of 14C-Brivaracetam, a Novel SV2A Ligand, in Healthy Subjects
This study was designed to investigate the human absorption, disposition, and mass balance of 14C-brivaracetam, a novel high affinity SV2A ligand with potent anticonvulsant activity. Six healthy male subjects received a single p.o. dose of 14C-brivaracetam (150 mg, 82 μCi, or 3.03 MBq). Serial blood and complete urine and feces were collected until 144 h postdose. Expired air samples were obtained until 24 h. Brivaracetam was rapidly absorbed, with Cmax of 4 μg/ml occurring within 1.5 h of dosing. Unchanged brivaracetam amounted to 90% of the total plasma radioactivity, suggesting a modest first-pass effect. Plasma protein binding of radioactivity was low (17.5%). Urinary excretion exceeded 90% after 2 days, and the final mass balance reached 96.8% of the radioactivity in urine and 0.7% in feces. Only 8.6% of the radioactive dose was recovered in urine as unchanged brivaracetam, the remainder being identified as non–cytochrome P450 (P450)- and P450-dependent biotransformation products resulting from hydrolysis of the amide moiety (M9, 34.2%), hydroxylation of the n-propyl side chain (M1b, 15.9%), and a combination of these two pathways leading to the hydroxy acid (M4b, 15.2%). Minor amounts of taurine and glucuronic acid conjugates and other oxidized derivatives were also identified. Brivaracetam is completely absorbed, is weakly bound to plasma proteins, extensively biotransformed through several metabolic pathways, and eliminated renally.