Acknowledgement of the Secret Protocol of the German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact and the Declaration of State Sovereignty by the Union Republics of the USSR
In June 1989, the First Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union established the Commission for Historical and Legal Estimation of the Soviet–German Non-aggression Pact of 1939. In the commission, representatives from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania condemned the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, prompting heated arguments regarding the invalidity of the related secret protocol of the pact with other members who continued to hold the traditional Soviet ideological view of the pact as something positive. The debate over the secret protocol had the further potential to extend to disputes over ‘recovery of lost territory’ amongst the Baltic States, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Russia. This article analyses the arguments used by commission members, considering the interplay of national interests, how they balanced arguments between restoration of ‘state sovereignty’ and maintenance of borders, and how they finally compromised and concluded the commission's report.
International Presence of the Japanese Study of Russian and East European Economies
In this article, I examine the oversea activities of Japanese researchers in the field of Russian and East European economic studies based on objective data and offer several suggestions for improving their presence in the international academic community. The presence of Japanese scholars of Russian and East European economies as measured by the number of relevant articles published in international journals is still marginal at best, despite their high participation rates in academic conferences abroad. This may partly be due to the fact that many Japanese researchers are not effectively utilizing available international resources. Furthermore, although many of the works produced by Japanese experts have important implications in the research field, only a handful of them are submitted to international journals. In this and many other respects, there is still much room for enhancing the international status of the Japanese study of Russian and East European economies.
Who assimilates whom?—The world and the Baltic region
WHO ASSIMILATES WHOM?--THE BALTIC REGION WORLD AND THE Rein Taagepera, University of California, lrvine Assimilation here means linguistic assimilation. In the Baltic republics some immigrants are assimilated by the Balts. In districts where Russian immigration is heavy, the reverse assimilation of local people by the speakers of Russian can occur. Both processes proceed simultaneously. Which of the two is faster? Before even attempting an answer, the broader context has to be discussed. It may cast a different light on the Baltic regional issues even if one is not prepared to go along with all my claims. I invite the reader to toy with some crazy conclusions flowing somewhat logically from some well-known trends. It will be argued that successful Russification would ultimately further more rapid Anglicization of the Baltic region. Hence the Russians would be better off if they gave up on Russification attempts and began to support the neighboring languages as a bulwark against the worldwide onslaught of English. The data analysis presented subsequently indicates that the current assimilation rate of Baits by Russians is negligible at the most, so that full Russification could not be accomplished before Anglicization becomes a serious competing process. Will Russification Efforts Promote Anglicization? Assimilation in the Soviet Union has mainly taken the form of Russification. However, in the non-Russian union republics some assimilation in the direction of the republic titular nation also is attempted or takes place spontaneously, especially among dispersed minorities which can even include Russians. The educational system protects the Russians in the non-Russian republics, but the members of other nationalities (designated here as third nationalities ) often have only the choice between schools in the republic language or in Russian. If both of these languages are equally foreign to the parents' national JBS, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (Fall 1987)