An Undergraduate Journal in East European, Eurasian, and Slavic Studies

University of California, Berkeley

Volume 1 | Issue 1 Spring 2011
Troika

x Study abroad in Kharkiv, Ukraine
x Field trips to Moscow and Kyiv
x Intensive Russian and Ukrainian
language training
x Classes in English:
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x Attend one of the oldest and most
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x 24/7 on-site support from EESA Center

www.EESAbroad.org
info@eesabroad.org

This publication is
made possible by
support from the
Institute of Slavic,
East European, and
Eurasian Studies at
the University of
California, Berkeley,
with funding
from the the U.S.
Department of
Education Title VI
National Resource
Centers program.
Front Cover Photograph: Lukomorye; Above: Prague. Katarina White
http://iseees.berkeley.edu
Table of Contents
Editors Note & Acknowledgments
Troika Editorial Staff
Contributer Bios
Topolinskaya | The Kornilov Affair and
the Bolsheviks: Legitimacy for the
Illegitimate
Matejcek | We Have Such Things:
Government and Civilian Experiences
of the Kitchen Debate in the United
States and Soviet Union
Beigel-Coryell | Chopindimonium
Patrinely | The Aral Sea Disaster:
Unequal Restoration Progress in
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
Oberholtzer | Translation of Vrednye
sovety dlya detej starshego vozrasta
Allen | Political Elites in a Croatian
Context: Homogeneity and its role in
political decision making in Croatia
Haggerty | Passions and Habits
Intertwined
Budesa | Home
Allahverdi | Assimilation
Garcia | Chekhov in California
4
5
6
7
12
17
22
28
29
32
33
35
36
3
Editors Note
One windy, summer day, I began my
first journey into a foreign land. I was on
a bus full of jetlagged Americans, being
carted around St. Petersburg to see the
sights that attract both casual tourists and
lovers of Russian culture alike. After a full
day of sightseeing, I sat exhausted on the
bus. I was frustrated because all I had done
in Russia so far was take pictures of pretty
buildings, but I hadnt actually learned or
experienced anything new. Looking out of
the window of the bus, I saw a tree growing
out of the gutter of an old, decrepit building.
It was an instant reminder of why I first
chose to study Russian. From a building that
was beginning to crumble into the ground, a
tree was starting to sprout into the skyline.
I found the tree to be thought provoking
and unexpected, but beautiful in its own
way. This tree is a good representation of
what I fell in love with in East European
studies. There is simultaneous mystery,
intrigue and charm surrounding the region,
and it always keeps you wondering.
A year ago, I stumbled upon the world
of publications in a similar fashion. When
I decided to start a Slavic journal, I didnt
have an editing staff, support from the
Acknowledgements
In addition to thanking the hard work of the Troika editors, I would like to acknowledge
the contributions of Djamilia Niazalieva, Lena Tsurkan, Margarita Chudnovskaya and James
Stein. I would also like to thank Irina Paperno of the UC Berkeley Slavic Department and Jeff
Pennington of the Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies for their valuable
advice, time and support.
4
university, funding, or an idea of what I was hoping to accomplish. Luckily, a lot can change
in a year. I couldnt ask for a better editing staff than this one, and the Slavic Department and
the Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies have been much needed sources of
support and advice. The result of this is the journal that you now hold in your hands. I wish you
happy reading and happy wondering.

Alekzandir Morton
Editor-in-Chief
Troika Editorial Staff
Alekzandir Morton,
Editor-in-Chief
Alekzandir is a third year Slavic Cultures major. He is studying Russian and Romanian languages,
and has an interest in 20th century Russian history, culture and literature. He studied abroad in St.
Petersburg and Moscow in Summer of 2010.

Olga Slobodyanyuk,
Managing Editor
0lga is a seconu yeai histoiy majoi with a minoi in Slavic language liteiatuie anu cultuie She inisheu
primary school in her home town of Moscow, to which she has often returned since. Visiting her family
leads to her traveling all over Ukraine and trying to master Ukrainian. She is the current president of
the UC Berkeley Russian Club.

Nick Bondar-Netis,
Managing Editor
Nick is a fourth year Political Science major with a minor in Slavic Language, Literature, and Culture.
He was born in San Francisco, but his family emigrated from the Lviv and Moscow. He is interested
in the current political situation of the former Soviet countries as well as modern Eastern European
popular cultures folkloric roots.
Christina Monzer,
Associate Editor, Layout and Design Editor
Christina is a fourth year Development Studies major, focusing on Anthropology and City Planning
with a geographic concentration of Eastern Europe. Originally from Lvov, Ukraine, she returns often
to visit family Bei inteiests incluue Russian iction stuuying Russian anu othei languages anu
sustainable development.
Julia Nowak,
Associate Editor, Website Design Editor
Julia is a third year, junior transfer in the Slavic department majoring in Polish Language & Literature.
Her interests include Eastern European cinema, 20th century Russian & Eastern European history, and
Slavic languages in general.
Natalie Budesa,
Associate Editor
Natalie is a Slavic Languages & Literatures major with a concentration in East European culture.
She enjoys learning languages and is currently learning Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian and Japanese. In
summer 2010 she stayed in Croatia and Montenegro where she visited family, swam in the Adriatic,
and explored the old cities.
Jeong Choi,
Associate Editor
Jeong is a fourth year history major and will be writing his thesis on either Eastern Europe or France.
He spent a semester in Paris and had some of the most amazing experiences of his life.
Maya Garcia,
Copy Editor
Maya is a sophomore studying comparative literature and Russian at UC Berkeley. She draws for
several campus publications and in her free time makes cartoons about Russian literature. She will be
spending her junior year in St. Petersburg to get a better idea of how the backgrounds should look.
5
Contributor Bios
Geoff Allen is a Political Science and
Russian and Slavic Studies major who is
currently completing his senior year at
the University of Arizona. He has recently
spent 3 months studying Russian language
and culture in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Nika Allahverdi immigrated to the United
States in 1997 from Azerbaijan. She is a UC
Berkeley freshman intending to major in
Linguistics. Nika speaks Russian, English,
Spanish, and is currently learning French.

Anna Matejcek is a History and Slavic
Studies double major at Brown. She spent
the Fall 2010 semester studying in Moscow.

Cristian Macavei is a business administration
and Economics major at UC Berkeley who will
be graduating in 2012. He was born in Romania
and lived there until he was eight years old. At
that time he moved to the United States. He
has visited Romania several times since then,
but he has spent most of his time in California.
Cristian speaks Romanian and Spanish.
Photography on page 35 and back cover.

Rhianna Patrinely is a senior at the University
of Kansas. She is majoring in Slavic Languages
and Literatures with a double major in
Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
She will graduate in May 2012 as a 5th year
senior. She has been studying Russian for
3 years and is hoping to go to Krasnoyarsk,
Siberia for 5 weeks in the summer of 2011.

Julia Nowak is a junior at UC Berkeley.
She is an Associate Editor and the
Website Design Editor for Troika.
Photography on pages 18 & 20.

Maya Garcia is a sophomore at UC
Berkeley. She is a Copy Editor for Troika.
Cartoons on page 37.
Julie Beigel-Coryell will graduate in 2011
from UC Berkeley with a major in Slavic Studies
with a focus on Polish Language and Literature.
She did a volunteer project in Gdansk, Poland in
Spring 2010, as well as a volunteer/study abroad
program in Warsaw in summer 2010. She has also
done volunteer work in France and Switzerland.
She studies Polish and French languages.

Marina Irgon is a undergraduate senior at Brown
University, double majoring in Slavic Studies and
Economics. She has integrated these disciplines
through independent research conducted in
both Russia and the Czech Republic. She took
this photo of the Yuriev Monastery during the
summer of 2008 while studying in St. Petersburg.
Photography on page 19.

Regina Topolinskaya is a senior at the
University of Florida majoring in political
science and economics with minors in
Russian and history and a European Studies
ceitiicate She stuuieu abioau at Noscow
State University this past summer, and speaks
English and Russian and has studied Spanish.

Katarina White is a second year History and
Slavic Languages and Cultures double major
at UC Berkeley. She was born in Serbia, and
moved to the United States at a young age. She
visits family there almost every summer. She
grew up speaking Serbian, and learned English
while in preschool. She now studies Russian.
Photography on cover, pages 1, 20 & back cover.
Erica Haggerty is a Media Studies
major and English minor at UC Berkeley.

Natalie Budesa is a junior at UC Berkeley.
She is an Associate Editor for Troika.
Christina Monzer is a senior at UC
Berkeley. She is an Associate Editor &
the Layout and Design Editor for Troika.
Photography on page 21.
6
The Kornilov Affair and the Bolsheviks:
Legitimacy for the Illegitimate
Regina Topolinskaya
The Koinilov Aaii iemains
one of the most controversial and
fascinating events of the Russian
Revolution. Occurring on the tail
end of a tumultuous summer for the
Provisional Government, the events
of early September 1917 (late August
by the Russian calendar) had shaken
the alieauy weak coniuence in the
goveinment anu moie speciically
its leader Alexander Kerensky. While
shrouded in a cloak of mystery, it is
evident that various actors utilized
the Koinilov Aaii to maximize theii
popularity, as is oftentimes the case
in history. While Kerensky attempted
to downplay his arguably duplicitous
role in the course of events, the
Bolsheviks ieapeu beneits fiom the
aaii they weie tiansfoimeu fiom
near-pariahs to a more mainstream
group within the socialist-leaning
population of Russia. Their perceived
success, albeit partially derived
fiom the eoits of theii suppoiteis
was ultimately linked to the actions
of railroad workers who stopped
Kornilovs troops from reaching
Petrograd. Given the workers pivotal
role, this papers analysis of Bolshevik
success in the Koinilov Aaii will
focus on the Bolsheviks connection
with the railroad and the degree
to which they can claim legitimacy
fiom the eoits of this gioup A
deeper examination of the railroad
workers political sympathies reveals
the limited extent to which the
Bolsheviks deserved the praise and
increasing popularity they received
as a iesult of the Koinilov Aaii
Background
General Lavr Kornilov, a Cossack
from western Siberia, emerged
as the hero of rightist elements
in the summer of 1917. Although
prominent after February 1917
for his criticism of the Bolsheviks
in Petrograd, Kornilov gained true
notoriety months later with his
calls for military discipline. As a
self-proclaimed Russian patriot,
Kornilovs primary objective
remained military successes during
World War I, in accordance with
Russias promises to the Allies.
Kornilov advocated most strongly for
reinstatement of the death penalty
in the army to punish deserters
and dissenters. In July he wrote to
Denikin in response to his report
on military discipline, I would sign
such a report with both my hands.
1

Denikins proposed methods
included the resumption of deference
anu goou conuuct towaiu oficeis
the introduction of special units
assigneu to oficeis to uiscouiage
mutinies, and the reintroduction of
capital punishment in the army.
2

The last of these, although
agreed to by Kerensky grudgingly
in July of 1917, was a radical break
from a provision signed into law
by Prince Lvov in March 1917, a
hallmark of the liberal revolution
and as important as more famous
provisions for freedom of speech
and press. An article in Delo Naroda
called it the greatest victory of the
revolution and largely indicative
of the greater freedom accorded to
citizens by the revolution.
3
Other
measures favored by Kornilov and
Denikin, among other military
personnel, contradicted Order
Number 1, which had challenged
the supiemacy of oficeis ielative
to ordinary soldiers. By giving into
pressure by Kornilov, Kerensky was
betraying the revolution in the eyes
of the left.
The reinstatement of the death
penalty in the military symbolized
Kerenskys delicate balancing act
between the right-leaning military,
which Kerensky supported in his
quest for victory in war, and the
soviet, an organization he necessarily
was required to share power with
for legitimacy with the masses.
Kornilov represented a serious
rival from the right and center-right
with a ighting foice at his uisposal
possibly a deleterious opponent to
the Provisional Government
4
. His
popularity became evident during
the Moscow State Conference
of that summer when jubilant
crowds greeted Kornilov, lining the
streets to see the military hero and
deliverer of possible order in chaotic
revolutionary Russia. Portraits and
biographies of Kornilov were also
distributed from automobiles.
5

Kornilov was steadily developing
his own cult of personality, whether
desired or not, in direct opposition
to Kerenskys self-manufactured
one. The emergence of two distinct
polaiizeu iguies on the iight anu
left in early 1917 set the stage for the
Koinilov Aaii
Accounts of the Koinilov Aaii
are dubious at best. Although key
details are either missing or unclear,
three possible explanations emerge.
The iist explanation posits that
Kerensky saw Kornilov as a rival
power that needed to be eliminated
for smooth rule by the Provisional
Government. Kerenskys duplicity
was present in his negotiations
through V.N. Lvov with Kornilov.
According to this theory, Kerensky
dispatched Lvov to gauge the
plausibility of dictatorship and
elimination of the power of the
Bolsheviks and soviets by Kornilov.
Kornilovs coup then was not a
coup in the traditional sense of
the word at all, but a rather state-
authorized movement of troops to
deal with an anticipated Bolshevik
uprising, consistent with his own
story.
6
When Kerensky realized his
prospects for success in this endeavor
weie minute he set o the alaim
of counterrevolutionary activity
(as well as a story of Kornilovs
ultimatum to Kerensky via Lvov) to
mobilize the soviets and ensure his
own salvation.
7

A second group of scholars
has emerged in support of an
attempted coup by Kornilov without
the acquiescence of Kerensky.
The last strand of explanations
comes from scholars who believe
that a misunderstanding occurred
between Kerensky and Kornilov,
the latter ordering troops to march
on Petrograd with an assumed
governmental mandate and the
former interpreting the movement
as counterrevolutionary. Regardless
of the motives and negotiations
between the two iguies the victoi
in the situation was neither of the
two. The Bolsheviks, weakened
by the wave of retributions by the
government since the July Days,
7
were strengthened by the situation.
In a sense, one could call Lenin the
iionic winnei of the aaii
8

Although the Bolsheviks played
an important role in the protection of
Petrograd by organizing and arming
workers, the primary reason for the
defeat of the Kornilov coup was the
eoit of iailway woikeis
9
Three
divisions ordered by Kornilov never
reached the city due to the actions
of these workers. The Bolsheviks
capitalized on this in the months
following the attempted coup, as
later documents will evince, but had
little to no inluence in the events
that took place on the railroads
which were instrumental in limiting
the movement of Kornilovite troops.
A more detailed examination of the
sympathies of the railway workers
and their centralized union yields a
clearer picture of their allegiances
anu motives foi halting the low of
counterrevolutionary troops.
Railway organization and role in
the Kornilov Affair
The power of railway workers to
signiicantly change political histoiy
dates back to their introduction of
a general strike in October 1905,
bringing the tsarist government
to its knees and contributing to
the signing of the liberal October
Manifesto by Nicholas II. This
strike created a popular pattern of
organization followed by railway
workers, despite their natural
tendencies towards decentralization
along lines, after the February
Revolution in 1917.
10
By that point,
railway tracks numbered over
60,000 kilometers, and the industry
employed approximately one million
people, who controlled the supply of
food and military supplies to cities
and the front.
11

In April 1917, the First All-Russian
Congress of Railroadmen created the
All-Russian Union of Railroadmen,
a centralized organ of organization,
and elected an All-Russian Executive
Committee of Railroadmen,
Vikzhel.
12
Craft organizations were
instructed to dissolve and become
part of the mass participation
union. The organization of railway
workers was a manifestation of the
growth of democratic-based mass
organizations throughout Russia.
Much of civil society, empowered
by the revolution and freedom from
tsarist monopoly on organized
stiuctuies coniguieu itself in a
similar pattern to that observed in
railway labor.
Vikzhel and the union as a
whole were plagued by two main
problems during their existence,
the centralization of railway
control and its increasing ties to
the Provisional Government. The
former contradicted the railway
workers natural tendencies for low-
level decentralized organization and
control of any issues that would arise
by a principle mirroring modern
subsidiarity in governmental
decision-making. Despite the railway
union allowing for devolved powers
throughout the tiers of control of the
railway system via local and road
committees, control over issues that
pertained to all railway workers,
such as strikes and wage bargaining,
remained under the centralized
unions monopolization. Line
committees also pressed for powers
to contiol hiiing anu iiing which
workers resented.
13

Vikzhel would continue to
have large-scale troubles with craft
unions. In August, a Strike Committee
of the Union of Locomotive
Operating Crews bypassed the All-
Russian Union of Railroadmen by
declaring an impending strike to
assure satisfaction of their drawn-
out economic demands dating back
from May 1917.
14
On September
1, the Union of Railroad Engineers
similarly decided to halt work on
trains not marked as military or Red
Cross.
15
These incidents indicate
the weakness of Vikzhel, generally
more conservative and loyalist as
a body than its divisions, and its
union to control the actions of its
composing parts and the tendencies
of craft organizations to seek self-
representation when their demands
remained unmet.
The second concern of railway
woikeis was the iniltiation of
statization into inuustiy aaiis
Nekrasov, Minister of Transport
until August 1917, was a proponent
of worker control and close
connection of the unions and the
state, continually working with
civil organizations. As the union
continued to closely negotiate with
state oficials questions aiose
regarding the position of Vikzhel
oficials oftentimes peiceiveu
as quasi-state representatives.
Engineeis speciically feaieu that the
railroad union would morph into a
state agency and lose its autonomy.
16

These concerns grew as the union
was unable to come to compromises
on wage equalization to beneit all
parties of railroadmen involved, an
impossible and colossal task in and
of itself.
Despite the obstacles faced by
the central railway union, it played a
crucial role in stopping the Kornilov
coup Speciically its executive
committee Vikzhel served as a
centralized point of communication
with which the soviets could
interact. The Petrograd Soviet acted
swiftly by creating the Committee
for Struggle with Counterrevolution.
It was composed of three Bolsheviks,
thiee Nensheviks thiee SRs ive
representatives of the Vtsik and the
Executive Committee of Peasants
Duties, and two representatives each
from trade unions and the Petrograd
Soviet. The composition was diverse
and by no means dominated by
Bolsheviks, as the numbers suggest.
The committee procured weapons,
organized the populace in Petrograd,
and ensured the safety of a reliable
food supply during the uncertain
time. It also initiated contact with
the railway workers to preempt the
movement of troops into Petrograd
through the Railway Bureau of the
Soviets by calling on workers to
block trains of Kornilovite soldiers.
17

Trotsky delineates the following
picture of the crucial role played by
railway workers:

The railroad workers in
those days did their duty. In
a mysterious way echelons
woulu inu themselves moving
on the wrong roads. Regiments
would arrive in the wrong
division, artillery would be sent
up a blinu alley stas woulu
get out of communication
with their units. All the big
stations had their own Soviets,
their railroad workers and
their military committees.
TROIKA
8
The telegraphers kept them
informed of all events, all
movements, all changes. The
telegraphers also held up the
orders of Kornilov. Information
unfavourable to the Kornilovists
was immediately, multiplied,
distributed, pasted up, passed
from mouth to mouth. The
machinists, the switchmen, the
oilers, became agitators. It was
in this atmosphere that the
Kornilov echelons advanced
or what was worse, stood still.
18

Vikzhel formed a special bureau
to deal with the movement of
Kornilovs troops and instructed
various rail lines to hold suspicious
telegrams and inform them of the
movement of all suspect military
forces, later communicated to the
soviets and government. The Bureau
authorized radical means, such as
blocking or destroying the tracks.
In light of these actions, historian
Alexander Rabinowitch calls the
iailway unions eoits the most
crucial of all of Russias trade unions
during this time.
19
The three divisions
of the Third Corps commanded
by Kornilov to strike at Petrograd
stopped by railway workers were
the infamous Savage Division on
Moskovsko-Vindavo-Rybinskoi line,
the Ussuriisky Mounted Divison on
the Baltic line, and the First Don
Cossack Division on the Warsaw
line.
While stopped on the Moskovsko
line, the Savage Division was met by
workers who revealed to them the
motives for Krymov and Kornilov
sending them to Petrograd. Having
little desire to overthrow the
Provisional Government, the soldiers
hoisteu the ieu lag insciibeu
land and freedom and created a
revolutionary committee to spread
information to other divisions
about the treason of Kornilov.
The Ussuriisky Mounted Division
was similarly neutralized after
workers blocked its railway line.
Representatives of the local soviets
and the Committee for Struggle
(including Tsereteli) convinced
the soldiers to remain loyal to the
Provisional Government. Although
government control over the First
Don Cossack Division took longer
than the other two, partly because
General Krymov was traveling
with the division, agitators were
also able to win soldiers over to
the government side, making the
impractical plausibility of Krymov
marching the troops to Petrograd,
iftyseven miles fiom wheie the
trains were stopped,.
20
The actions
of railway workers ensured that
skirmishes were almost non-existent
uuiing the Koinilov Aaii anu
Petrograd remained in the hands of
the Provisional Government.
Bolsheviks and railway workers:
misalignment of goals and
motivations
What led the railway workers
to thwart Kornilovs military and
political plans? While Bolsheviks
have argued that the workers that
engaged in these actions were either
Bolsheviks or Bolshevized, the
true motives for their actions are
governed by more complicated
explanations. As the bedrock of the
stiuggle uuiing the Koinilov Aaii
it was crucial for the Bolsheviks to
establish a link with the actions of
railway workers which in reality
existed simply in a weak form. The
true motives of the railroadmen are
best explained, not by ideological
alignment with Bolshevism, but in
four broader ways, undercutting
Bolshevik legitimacy drawn from the
event.
The most elementary reason for
the actions of the railway workers
was their opposition to the goals and
political ideals of Kornilov. From a
broad standpoint, railway workers
were supportive of the revolution
and, as later discussed, loyalist on
the whole. Their recollections of
the tsarist era were generally not
pleasant, concerning the treatment of
workers and their labor associations,
where they existed. Kornilov, by being
branded a counterrevolutionary,
was related to the tsar in the minds
of the workers. Much like the White
generals Denikin and Wrangel
during the civil war, Kornilovs image
sueieu in with the woikeis uespite
of his uieiences fiom the tsaiist
establishment Noie speciic to the
railway workers practical aims,
Kornilov advocated militarization of
the railways, a measure that would
challenge the joint worker and state
control that had been instituted since
February.
21
Kornilov had demanded
this provision in August after rumors
of a general railway strike spread in
the capital.
22
These demands, along
with Kornilovs counterrevolutionary
desires to curtail workers freedom
gained since February, likely made
the choice to stop his troops an easy
one.
Additionally, the railway
workers sympathies on the whole
can be classiieu as loyalist The vast
number of service personnel, who
were disproportionately involved in
running the railway union, such
as clerks, trainmen, station
oficials baggage hanuleis anu
engine personnel, leaned toward
the SRs.
23
The First All-Russian
Congress of Railroadmen in April
1917 included an overwhelming
majority of Mensheviks, SRs, and
Internationalists, and although
several Bolsheviks delegates from
the workers were in attendance,
they constituted a small minority.
The second congress held in August
featured no candidates, although
the Bolsheviks had increased their
eoits of iniltiation since the iist
Congress.
24
Their insistence on
continuing as an anti-system party
during this time may have contributed
to their poor performance during
the second congress. The summer
congress eventually passed a
resolution in full support of the
Piovisional uoveinment ieafiiming
the allegiances that would be called
upon uuiing the Koinilov Aaii
25
On
the whole, railways workers can be
characterized as supportive of the
soviets and Provisional Government,
making their cooperation with the
government and contact with the
soviets natural during the Kornilov
Aaii
Since February, the party had
realized the crucial role these workers
could play in their rise to power and
devoted itself to agitation against the
union and Vikzhel, positioning itself
as an anti-status quo party, much like
its position in Petrograd. In July 1917
the Central Committee of the party
even created a commission under the
chairmanship of Stalin to work on
iniltiating the iailway netwoik
26
As
Regina Topolinskaya
9
craft unions grew during the summer
of 1917, lower-ranking railway
workers created Madzhel, just as
locomotive engineers and service
employees before them had done,
increasing their class consciousness
and group solidarity.
27
Trotsky notes
that during the October Revolution, a
topic beyond the scope of this paper,
lower ranks of railway servants
recognized the power of Bolshevik
Commissioners, hinting at the class-
based nature of the partys support
in areas where it existed.
28

The gains made by the Bolsheviks
among the workers should not be
hyperbolized. Looking beyond the
limited gains among lower class
railway workers, the Bolsheviks
weie unable to oei the woikeis
appealing goals. Their message of
long-term centralized control of
railways contrasted with workers
tendencies for worker control
and decentralization, as already
portrayed in their interaction with
Vikzhel and the railway union.
29

Conscious of this ideological setback,
Shliapnikov, a member of the
commission set up by the Bolsheviks
for railway agitation among workers,
espoused democratic principles on
the railroads, while Stalin called for
more centralization.
30
In the summer
of 1917, with an ideological view
closer to Stalins, the party had little
to oei iailway woikeis in teims
of tangible results or theoretical
arguments.
Despite these gains for
Bolsheviks it is uificult anu
incorrect to characterize the railway
workers who stopped Kornilovite
troops in September as Bolsheviks
or Bolshevized. The complicated
stiatiication of iailway labois
structure makes this evident. Their
sympathies, based on turnout at
congresses and the inability of
the Bolsheviks to theoretically or
practically appeal to a wide segment
of workers without class-based
slogans, leaned loyalist toward
the government, rather than anti-
government Bolsheviks. Many of their
sympathies lay more distantly from
the Bolsheviks and closer to those of
Pyotr Arshinov, a railroad workshop
storeman from Orel Province, who
wrote to Kerensky to slap an iron
harness on those who are obviously
leading the Fatherland to its ruin. Rip
the accursed weeds out of our native
ielu ueai Russia
31
The inal two
motives for railway assistance to the
government lie with Vikzhel and the
railway union leaderships political
leaning. The majority of railway
workers (likely the ones who did
the physical work of stopping trains
uuiing the Koinilov Aaii uiu so foi
anti-Kornilov and pro-government
reasons. Without the coordination
by Vikzhel of orders sent from the
soviet many of these eoits woulu
have been non-existent. The next
two motives explain why Vikzhel
took upon itself the duty to save the
government and revolution.
Vikzhel played an integral part
in the aaii cieating a buieau to
deal with the tumultuous events
of September and maintaining a
link between the rail lines and the
goveinment The iist ieason foi this
ielates to the political afiliations
of its members. Vikzhels forty-
member establishment at the time
consisted of fourteen SRs, seven
Mensheviks, three Popular Socialists,
two Bolsheviks, one Bolshevik
sympathizer, two Interdict Committee
representatives, and eleven non-
afiliateu Kauetleaning membeis
32

By afiliation its membeis weie
far from Bolshevik and were
dominated by moderates and SRs,
whose loyalties would lie with the
Provisional Government and soviets.
Certainly, no counterrevolutionaries
were among its ranks, making the
decisions to communicate with
railway lines to halt troops a clear
one.
Vikzhels close connection
to the government is also useful
for explaining its support of anti-
Kornilovite measures. Minister
of Transport Nekrasov espoused
worker participation in industrial
organization and unionization for
the smooth operation of industry.
His theory of management can be
most closely explained in modern-
day economic terms as corporatist,
bringing together workers and
employers (herein the government)
for negotiations. Nekrasov had
secured funds, thousands of rubles,
for the organization of the railway
union, which he envisioned as
an autonomous state union with
positive spillover to Russian citizens,
in Apiil befoie the iist congiess
of railway workers. Nekrasov
also made war bonuses available
to railway workers, although the
uieientials in theii sums between
uieient stiata of laboi causeu an
upioai making the eect on iailway
worker support of the government
a moot point.
22
Although Nekrasov
had been replaced by August 1917
and Miliukov doubted whether
there was a strong commitment to
the ideals of worker control within
the government in the run up to
the Kornilov coup, the foundational
inluence the goveinment hau on
the railway union in April 1917 and
connections it fostered with Vikzhel
aecteu vikzhels uecision to save
the government and soviets.
34

Given these four motives for mass
railway and Vikzhel mobilization
uuiing the Koinilov Aaii wheie uo
the Bolsheviks remain in their actions
uuiing the aaii Consiueiing theii
lack of inclusion in the stoppage of
the railways, an instrumental event
in the course of the history of the
revolution, the Bolsheviks must
be ascribed a peripheral role in
preventing the attempted Kornilov
coup. Undoubtedly their actions in
mobilizing workers into Red Guards
was signiicant in Petiogiau but these
actions were preemptive and not
necessary in the realized course of
history since the three division of the
Third Corps did not reach Petrograd
as counteiievolutionaiy ighteis
Regaiuless of the signiicance of theii
contribution, the reality remains that
the Bolsheviks did gain substantially
from the event.
The Bolsheviks perceived
the Koinilov Aaii as a tuining
point in their struggle against the
bourgeoisie.Transformed from near-
pariahs, the government had sought
their assistance and exposed its
weaknesses. The change in the status
of the party among the people as a
iesult of the Koinilov Aaii is cleai
is the writings of Lenin and Trotsky.
Trotsky wrote that the growth of
the inluence anu stiength of the
Bolsheviks was undoubted, and it
had now received an irresistible
impetus.
35
Lenin, in a document
about the situation of the Bolsheviks
in mid-September, similarly wrote
10
TROIKA
1
www.yourwebaddresshere.com
IN THIS
that the revolution had been moving
at an unparalleled speed and, like
Trotsky, labeled the Kornilov coup
as the event that exposed the unfair
treatment of the government to the
Bolsheviks. Lenin wrote:
The histoiic signiicance of
the Kornilov revolt is that
with extraordinary force, it
opened the peoples eyes to
a fact which the S.R.s and
Mensheviks had concealed
and still are concealing under
conciliatory phrases. The
fact is that the landowners
and the bourgeoisie, headed
by the Cadet Party, and the
geneials anu oficeis who aie
on their side, have organised
themselves; they are ready to
commit, or are committing,
the most outrageous crimes,
such as surrendering Riga
(followed by Petrograd) to the
Germans, laying the war front
open, putting the Bolshevik
iegiments unuei iie staiting a
mutiny, leading troops against
the capital with the Savage
Division at their head, etc. The
purpose of all this is to seize
power completely and put it in
the hands of the bourgeoisie,
to consolidate the power of the
landowners in the countryside,
and to drench the country in the
blood of workers and peasants.
The Kornilov revolt has proved
for Russia what has been
proved throughout history for
all countries, namely, that the
bourgeoisie will betray their
country and commit any crime
to retain both their power over
the people anu theii pioits
36

Lenin utilizeu the Koinilov Aaii to
disarm both the left in the soviets
and parties in government. Although,
as explained earlier, the Mensheviks
and SRs played a crucial role in
Vikzhels operations during the
Koinilov Aaii anu likely the iailway
workers own sympathies, Lenin
portrays all political elements sans
Bolsheviks as losing credibility from
the incident.
Lenin and Trotsky were correct
in their assessments. The predictions
of the Bolsheviks had manifested
themselves in Kornilovs planned
coup. Despite not partaking in
methous that signiicantly thwaiteu
Kornilov, the Bolsheviks did gain
legitimacy from the event. Kerensky,
whether guilty of complicity or not,
was discredited by mid-September.
The Mensheviks and SRs of the
soviets, the so-called compromisers,
whose popularity should have
iisen in light of theii signiicant
contributions in coordinating with
the railways and having similar
sympathies to the railway workers
that stopped Kornilovite troops, lost
seats in the September Petrograd
soviet. The Bolsheviks, propelled
in part by their actions during
September, had attained a majority
of seats in the Moscow and Petrograd
soviets, causing Lenin to proclaim
that the time to assume power had
come. Undoubtedly the Kornilov
Aaii iepiesenteu a tuining point
for the Bolsheviks, and as Kerensky
would later put it, a prelude to
Bolshevism. Ironically, Kerenskys
gambit to repel the right paved the
road for a one-party dictatorship by
the left.
Notes
1
Lavr Kornilov, in Ronald Kowalski, Russian
Revolution 1917-1921 (New York: Routledge,
1997), p. 70.
2
A.I. Denikin, in Kowalski, Russian Revolution
1917-1921, p. 68.
3
The Magnanimity of the Russian Revolution, in
Alexander F. Kerensky and Robert Paul Browder,
The Russian Provisional Government 1917:
Documents, I (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1961), pp. 203-204.
4
Although associated with the right, Kornilovs
support relied heavily on center-right intellectuals.
For further reading on the level of Kadet support
of Kornilov, see Richard Stites, introduction to
The Russian Revolution, I, by Paul N. Miliukov (Gulf
Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1978),
p. xvii. Additional anecdotal evidence also comes
fiom Abiaham Aschei The Koinilov Aaii The
Russian Review 12, no. 4 (1953): 242.
5
Ibid.
6
Baivey Aschei The Koinilov Aaii A
Reinterpretation, Russian Review 29, no. 3 (1970):
300.
7
Foi fuithei suppoit foi the iist theoiy
articulated in this paper, see N. Ukraintsev, The
Koinilov Aaii Soviet Stuuies no
anu Ashei The Koinilov Aaii A
Reinterpretation, p. 296.
8
Aschei The Koinilov Aaii p
9
Ibid., 249.
10
Wilson R. Augustine, Russias Railwaymen, July-
October 1917, Russian Review 24, no. 4 (1965):
667.
11
William G. Rosenberg, The Democratization
of Russians Railroads in 1917, The American
Historical Review 86, no.5 (1981): 985.
12
Augustine, Russias Railwaymen, p. 668.
13
Rosenberg, The Democratization of Russias
Railroads, p. 994
14
The Threat of a Railroad Strike, in Alexander F.
Kerensky and Robert Paul Browder, The Russian
Provisional Government 1917 Documents, II
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961): 756-
757.
15
Railway Engineers in Russia Vote to Stop Work in
Part, New York Times, September 2, 1917, http://
query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&
res=9A05E7DB103BE03ABC4A53DFBF66838C6
09EDE (accessed December 12, 2009).
16
Rosenberg, The Democratization of Russias
Railroads, p. 1001.
17
Aschei The Koinilov Aaii p
18
Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian
Revolution, II, Marxists Internet Archive, http://
www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/
ch33.htm (accessed December 12, 2009).
19
Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to
Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd (New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1976), pp. 141-
142.
20
Ibid., 146-149
21
Aschei The Koinilov Aaii p
22
Acting War Minister Resigns His Post, New York
Times, August 25, 1917, http://query.nytimes.
com/mem/archive-free/pdf ?res=9C06E4DD123
FE433A25756C2A96E9C946696D6CF (accessed
December 12, 2009).
23
Rosenberg, The Democratization of Russias
Railroads, p. 986.
24
Naglovski, in Kerensky and Browder, The Russian
Provisional Government 1917, II, pp. 763-764.
25
Augustine, Russias Railwaymen, p. 672.
26
Naglovski, in Kerensky and Browder, The Russian
Provisional Government 1917, II, p. 763.
27
Rosenberg, The Democratization of Russias
Railroads, p. 1004.
28
Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution
to Brest-Litovsk, II, Marxists Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/
hrr/ch02.htm (accessed December 12, 2009).
29
Augustine, Russias Railwaymen, p. 676.
30
Naglovski, in Kerensky and Browder, The Russian
Provisional Government 1917, II, p. 763.
31
Pyotr Arshinov , in Mark D. Steinberg, Voices
of Revolution, 1917 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2001): 191.
32
Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, p.
142.
33
Rosenberg, The Democratization of Russias
Railroads, p. 996.
34
Niliukov speciically points to Skobelevs
retractions of support for worker control, found in
Milukov, The Russian Revolution, I, p. 161.
35
Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution
to Brest-Litovsk, I, Marxists Internet Archive,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/
hrr/ch01.htm (accessed December 12, 2009).
36
V.I. Lenin, Draft Resolution on the Present
Political Situation, Lenin Collected Works,
Marxists Internet Archive, http://www.marxists.
org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/03b.htm
(accessed December 12, 2009).
11
Regina Topolinskaya
We Have Such Things: Government and Civilian Experiences of
the Kitchen Debate in the United States and Soviet Union
Anna Matejcek
At the July 24, 1959 opening of
the American National Exhibition
in Moscows Sokolniki Park, in
front of the Whirlpool Miracle
Kitchen display, Soviet General
Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev
and American Vice-President
Richard Nixon engaged in a much-
publicized debate on the respective
merits of their dishwashers, housing
developments, and economic
systems. While this exchange
illustiates seveial uieiences in
oficial Soviet anu Ameiican opinion
regarding the attributes of an ideal
society it also iuentiies an impoitant
point of consensus: the production
of consumer goods as a measure of
success. This new focus on living
standards increasingly dominated
Cold War discourse during the mid-
1950s to early 1960s, both in terms
of domestic and foreign policy,
and served as the impetus for the
organization of national exhibitions
like the American National Exhibition
in Moscow (ANEM), on which this
paper will focus.
The recasting of the Cold War
as a competition of living standards
can be traced back to the American
postwai consensus on afluence as
the core of a new social order and
subsequent construction of The
American Way of Life, characterized
by the acquisition of domestic
appliances and the retreat into
suburbia.
1
While membership in
white, middle-class society, with its
Frigidaires and Cadillacs, was not a
realistic goal for all Americans, The
American Way of Life quickly came
to represent an idealized version of
American values and society that the
public woulu eageily anu coniuently
defend against the collectivism
and egalitarianism of the Soviet
Union. In response to this American
challenge, Khrushchev, rather than
choosing to reject consumer goods
as a measure of progress, proved
eager to set Soviet achievements
against those of the United States
and convince Americans that the
communist system was indeed
improving the lives of the Soviet
populace. In contrast to earlier, more
ideological opposition to the United
States, the Soviet approach to the
kitchen debate can be characterized
by the following remark made by
Khrushchev in response to Nixons
praise of the American model home
at ANEM: We have such things.
2

While existing scholarship has
examined the ways in which this new
emphasis on consumption endowed
the American and Soviet publics
with greater agency and political
importance, this paper will analyze
uieient ieactions to ANEN in oiuei
to explore the discrepancies, or the
lack theieof between oficial anu
civilian experiences of the kitchen
debate in both the United States and
the Soviet Union. For the American
and Soviet leadership the kitchen
debate represented a new stage
of Cold War competition in which
the goal was to outdo the other in
terms of housing and appliances,
as opposed to rockets. However,
civilian experiences of the kitchen
debate were characterized by a
deeper, more personal examination
of both their own system, and that of
the other. While average Americans
understood the kitchen debate as a
chance to afiim The Ameiican Way
of Life and sell it to the Soviets, most
Soviet citizens perceived the kitchen
debate as an opportunity to see
iisthanu what the Ameiicans hau
managed to produce, and to decide
whether they or the Americans were
tiuly bettei o
During the mid-1950s American
government propaganda and foreign
policy rhetoric began to place new
emphasis on the countrys allegedly
superior consumer goods and
standard of living. This decisive
shift in rhetoric that initiated the
reframing of the Cold War in terms
of consumption stemmeu iistly
from the failure of earlier, more
abstractly ideological propaganda
messages, and secondly, from
the American postwar focus on
consumerism as a means of security
and social mobility. For the American
government, this reconstitution
of the Cold War as competition of
living standards allowed politicians
to tie American abundance to liberal
capitalism, thereby implying that
such prosperity was not possible
under the Soviet system.
3

As the kitchen debate unfolded,
American propaganda moved away
from more abstract concepts like
freedom and justice for all towards a
less controversial focus on consumer
goods and the new peoples
capitalism that was fabulously
successful in beneiting not the
few, but the many.
4
While 1940s
propaganda lauding more abstract
values was initially successful,
these claims became increasingly
uificult to uefenu in the context of
the growing civil rights and feminist
movements, thus necessitating a
change in rhetoric. Beginning in
1950, state-sanctioned pamphlets
like Amerika, published in Russian,
were increasingly dominated by
pioiles of aveiage Ameiicans
louiishing unuei the system of
peoples capitalism and enjoying
the highest standard of living in the
world today.
5

Peihaps the most inluential
development in shaping the
American governments experience
of the kitchen debate was that of
the idealized American Way of Life
during the late 1940s and 1950s.
The postwar years had witnessed the
development of a myth of American
past in which social conlict was
concealed and Americans were
portrayed as a classless...and
unuieientiateu folk this iuea of
homogeneity, combined with the
relative prosperity of the 1950s, was
central to the construction of The
American Way of Life, characterized
by white, middle-class suburbia,
that incieasingly ueineu Ameiican
domestic and foreign policy during
the kitchen debate.
6
This American
Way of Life represented an ideal
that those of the working class sought
to emulate, but was in fact out of
reach for most ethnic minorities and
members of the lower class a fact
Soviet oficials woulu not hesitate to
point out.
7
Regardless of its actual
attainability, this image of secure,
miuuleclass afluence was useu by
12
the government to simultaneously
uiuse thieats to uomestic stability
and develop a sense of American
identity presented as being inherently
incompatible with communism.
By the mid-1950s the
goveinment hau inetuneu the
image of America and Americans it
hoped to project abroad, and in 1959
oficials aiiiveu at ANEN with the
clear goal of presenting American
society in its best light and marketing
liberal capitalism to the Soviet
public.
8
While the washing machines,
Pepsi-Cola and make-up displayed
at the exhibition seemed harmless
enough, the statements of American
government authorities demonstrate
a conscious attempt to package The
American Way of Life and sell it as a
product available exclusively under
the system of liberal capitalism,
thereby undermining communism in
terms of its ability to provide citizens
with the desired consumer goods
and standard of living. As Katherine
Howard, Deputy U.S. Commissioner
General to the Brussels World Fair
(195758), stated in 1959,We
must not lose sight of the fact...that
iist anu foiemost we aie engageu
in a psychological battle to win the
uncommitted nations to the free
way of life. This is the main reason
Congress brought us into being, and
why the United States is participating
in this exhibition...It is one of the
wonders of the world that Americans
in every economic strata have
kitchens with labor-saving devices
which free the American woman from
drudgery, which make the kitchen
the heart of the home.
9
Government
authorities saw the kitchen debate
as psychological battle between the
American ideology of domesticity
and the grim image of Soviet
frugality and were thus willing to
dedicate an unbelievable amount of
time and resources to ANEM in order
to communicate the image of The
Ameiican Way of Life as eectively
as possible.
One episode in particular
that demonstrates the extent to
which American government
oficials consciously vieweu
ANEM as a competition between
homogenous American contentment
and communism is the massive
controversy surrounding the
selection of exhibition artwork.
After a United States Information
Agency-selected jury decided upon
the paintings and shipped them
to Moscow, research on the sixty-
seven selected artists concluded
that moie than ifty peicent hau
some kinu of iecoius of afiliation
with Communist fronts and
causes, twenty-two of whom had
signiicant iecoius of afiliation with
American communist movements.
10

Representative Francis E. Walter,
Chairman of the House on Un-
American Activities (HUAC), singled
out Jack Levines 1946 painting
Welcome Home in particular. The
painting, which portrays a grotesque,
suspiciously afluent Ameiican
military general, was intended to
imply contrast with the experiences
of common American soldiers and
to thus criticize American military
hierarchy.
11
Walters objection to the
pieces inclusion in the fair was that
it would help the Kremlin convince
its enslaved people that its vicious
propaganda about American military
leaders is true, and even supported
by the American people.
12
While
the piece was ultimately allowed to
remain at the exhibition, this debate
indicates the extent to which the
American government consciously
manipulated the image it sent abroad.
Rather than simply trying to show
them what America is like, as the
fairs general manager stated, ANEM
was understood as an opportunity
to present Soviets with an idealized
version of cohesive, prosperous
American society that they would be
unable to compete with.
The kitchen debates focus on
living standards, in tandem with the
proximity facilitated by increased
Soviet-American exchange, made it
possible for the American government
to place increased pressure on the
Soviet Union. As one Russian visitor
to the fair stated, the United States
overarching message at ANEM
seemed to be Look, see how wealthy
we are.
13
Abundance, cleanliness,
and the absence of drudgery were
painted as automatic by-products
of capitalism, while a more covert...
condescending, message [implied]
that a hygienic anu eficient
householu ielecteu the intellectual
genetic, and moral strength of a
nation.
14
The American government
believed that by presenting their
superior automobiles, blenders and
hairdryers they would be able to
convince Soviets iistly that they
wanted The American Way of Life
and secondly, that communism was
incapable of providing it.
The American governments
experience of the kitchen debate was
one of conscious competition with
the Soviet Union; every interaction
between the two countries was
a chance to convince Soviets that
liberal capitalism was superior to
communism. While Harold McClellan,
the Los Angeles industrialist
selected as the exhibitions general
manger, told the New York Times
Im not trying to prove that were
better than they or that theyre
worthless...
15
American rhetoric and
activity surrounding the broader
kitchen debate and ANEM consciously
linked the high quality and
availability of American consumer
goods to American capitalism and
freedom. As Nixon told Khrushchev
in the original kitchen debate, To us,
the diversity, the right to choose...is
the most important thing. We dont
have one decision made at the top
by one goveinment oficialWe have
many uieient manufactuieis anu
many uieient kinus of washing
machines so that the housewives
have a choice.
16

American civilian experience of
the kitchen uebate uoes not uiei
greatly from that of the American
government given that The American
Way of Life was not only the main
tenet of American propaganda, but
also a dominant idea in American
domestic consciousness. As Elaine
Tyler May writes, The appliance-
laden ranch-style home epitomized
the expansive, secure lifestyle that
postwar Americans wanted. Within
the protective walls of the modern
home, worrisome developments
like sexual liberation, womens
emancipation anu afluence woulu
lead not to decadence but to a
wholesome family life...Suburbia
would serve as a bulwark against
communism anu class conlict
17
For
average Americans, the acquisition
of symbols associated with The
American Way of Life the
suburban home, the new dishwasher,
13
TROIKA
the family car was important
both in terms of facilitating upward
mobility and defending American
values against subversive political
ideas and communism.
The representation of ANEM
in mainstream American media
demonstrates overwhelming
support for the exhibition and its
goal of [giving] Americans a chance
to make Russians more restlessly
aware of the gulf between U.S. and
Soviet standards of living.
18
During
July 1959 articles about ANEM
dominated the American press, from
the New York Times to Better Homes
and Gardens, suggesting that the
success of the fair was understood
as being important not only for the
Soviets, but for American domestic
society. Excitement surrounding
the exhibition was ubiquitous, and
some journalists even went so far
as to label the exhibition nothing
less than the confrontation of two
civilizations.
19
Most articles were
liberal in their praise for American
society, in which the consumer is
king, where the great bulk of the
productive mechanism is devoted
to satisfying peoples wants, be
they necessities or whims while
the Soviet Union is portrayed as
the regimented....society in which
for over four decades leaders...have
decided what should be produced
on the basis of an ideology which
gloiiieu the machine tool anu the
steel mill while viewing the washing
machine and the dishwasher... as of
scant consequence.
20
The Cold War
and the kitchen debate, far from
being seen as the unique concern of
political elites, increasingly entered
the public domain and domestic
discourse during the 1950s a
development further demonstrated
by the proliferation of advice articles
and product announcements like
How to Win the Chore War, The
Detergents Strike Back and This
Kitchen Took Cover.
21

Statements by Americans
working at the Moscow exhibition
also support this conception of
the kitchen debate as a means to
expose Soviets to the bounties
of liberal capitalism and thereby
convince them of communisms
obsoleteness. American participants
in the exhibition were hand-picked
by the United States Information
Agency (USIA) and thus unlikely
to include citizens involved in
progressive political movements,
however, their views were generally
representative of the general
population. While beginning in
1960 public intellectuals and other
sources of authority would begin to
suggest that excessive materialism,
complacency labbiness selishness
apathetic anu aimless afluence anu
moral confusion... impaired Americas
global performance and reputation,
during the 1950s critics of American
consumerism and The American
Way of Life were few and far apart.
The prevailing attitude towards the
1959 exhibition was one of pride and
excitement to educate Soviets about
the wonders of American fashions
and appliances.
22
Take, for example,
the December 1959 Better Homes
and Gardens article written by Anne
Anderson, the daughter of Russian
immigrants and senior demonstrator
for the Whirlpool Miracle Kitchen at
the Moscow exhibition.
23

Anderson displays a decidedly
maternalistic attitude towards Soviet
women, presenting them as comically
misinformed about the realities of
American life and asking questions
like Do American women work? Are
these unmarried? I thought married
women just sat at home! Now tell
us truthfully, do you live in a home as
nice as the model home shown here?
Yours is better! How? How many
rooms do you have? Who lives with
you? Just you and your husband!
Why dont your parents live with
you? and In the bedroom of the
model apartment there are four or
ive paiis of lauies shoes Really now
you dont own that many, do you? You
brought six pairs to Moscow! Didnt
you leave any at home! How many?
This sense of superiority, founded in
American womens greater access
to consumer goods like hairdryers
and makeup, is representative of
American civilian attitudes towards
the kitchen debate. Americans saw
themselves as privileged and hoped
to use ANEM as an opportunity to
both afiim theii supeiioiity anu
convince their Soviets counterparts
that liberal capitalism would allow
them to access the same luxuries
Americans were already able to
enjoy Anueisons inal iemaik
encapsulates American attitudes
towards the Soviet Union: I consider
myself very lucky to have been born
an American. The special awareness
of being American in Russia
iist hit me when oui plane lanueu
at the Moscow airport.
24
The
consensus on The American Way
of Life as an ideal worth protecting
rendered American government and
civilian experiences of the kitchen
debate almost identical. While
the American public relied on the
government to protect their way of
life, the popular dream of upward
mobility strengthened the credibility
of the governments foreign policy
message regarding the superiority of
liberal capitalism.
The reconstitution of the
Cold War as a competition to
raise living standards presented
a major, perhaps insurmountable
challenge to the Soviet regime. While
Khrushchev told Nixon If you want
to live under capitalism, go ahead...it
doesnt concern us. We can feel sorry
for you, he still found it necessary
to place agitators among Soviet
visitors to ANEM, giving them the
task of monitoring pro-American
manifestations and excesses of
enthusiasm on the part of Soviet
visitors.
25,26
Despite Khrushchevs
coniuent ihetoiic Soviet oficials
seemed uncertain whether the
Soviet public would withstand
the attractions of American
consumerism, or completely
surrender themselves to it. The Soviet
regimes experience of the kitchen
debate was one of being constantly
on the defensive; it could do little but
watch as citizens saw the bounties
of capitalism iisthanu anu ueciueu
for themselves whether American
capitalism or Soviet communism
seemed more promising.
The Soviet governments
insecurity regarding ANEM and the
sudden proximity of The American
Way of Life is further demonstrated
by oficial statements in the piess anu
attempts to manipulate the goods
Americans would be able display
at the exhibition. General Manager
McClellans negotiations with Soviet
authorities revealed that they
were frightened by the American
emphasis on style and conspicuous
Anna Matejcek
14
consumption... as opposed to
quantity, and on May 25, 1959 Soviet
oficials infoimeu NcClellan that he
would not be able to give away the
makeup kits provided by Coty or
the Pepsi-Cola and souvenir paper
cups.
28
While the cola was ultimately
allowed, and subsequently became
one of the exhibitions great hits,
distribution of the makeup kits was
barred. Further attempts to temper
ANEMs message of unending
Ameiican eoitlessness moueinity
and convenience are evident in
the statements of the oficial Soviet
press agency, Tass.
29
In a dispatch
from one of its correspondents in
New York, Tass reported that there
is no more truth in showing this as
the typical home of the American
worker than, say, in showing the
Taj Mahal as the typical home of a
Bombay textile worker.
30
While this
was an attempt to discredit ANEMs
claim that it depicted the life of an
average America, Tasss criticism
was certainly warranted. Although
few Americans saw the exhibition
as any wild exaggeration, even if
the lily is gilded here and there, the
Whirlpool Miracle Kitchen alone
cost $250,000 and included various
electrical contrivances, push-button-
operated appliances, and a robotic
maid that was actually a remote-
contiolleu looisweeping uevice
operated by a hidden technician, and
it was certainly not representative
of the kitchens most Americans
possessed.
31

Historically, the Soviet regime had
given both ideological and economic
priority to production, rather than
consumption, thus nervousness
surrounding this new emphasis on
consumer goods is not surprising.
On one hand Khrushchev tried to
downplay American progress, asking
This is what America is capable of?
And how long has she existed? 300
years? 150 years of independence
and this is her level. We havent quite
reached 42 years, and in another 7
years, well be at the level of America,
and after that well go farther
but on the other hand, he proved
determined to convince Nixon that
the communist system was just at
adept at providing citizens with
amenities as the capitalist system.
32

For example, upon seeing the model
home at ANEM he asserted, We
have steel workers and peasants
who can aoiu to spenu
for a house.
33
The kitchen debate
challenged the Soviet Union to
develop an economic system that
could focus on producing consumer
goods while continuing to facilitate
the rejection of materialism. The
kitchen debate pushed the Soviet
regime into unknown territory; the
new consensus on living standards
and consumer goods as the
ueinitive measuie of success foiceu
the government to try and catch up
with the United States while still
maintaining a rejection of blatant
consumerism.
The Soviet civilian experience of
the kitchen debate is characterized
by skepticism and assertions that
the excess of consumer goods was
not a worthy replacement for the
communist values of collectivism
and egalitarianism. While there
is certainly a close congruence
between popular evaluations
expressed in conversations with
ANEM guides, as well as in the
comment books, and authoritative
ieactions in the piess this inluence
was not necessarily unidirectional.
34

In fact, in many cases it seems
that the Soviet government gave
its population too little credit
with regards to their ability to
withstand the sparkle of American
consumerism.
Despite initial curiosity
surrounding the exhibition and
excitement to inally see how
Americans lived, many of the
2.7 million Soviet citizens who
passed through the fair articulated
disappointment with the image of
The American Way of Life. Authors
of many of the comments in the fairs
guest books iuentiieu themselves as
producers, rather than consumers,
and criticized the exhibitions
emphasis on consumer goods,
asking Where is the American
technology that supposedly enabled
you to reach your standard of living?
....where is it, this famous America,
that great industrial power with its
highly developed technology, science,
and agriculture?
35
Although many
Soviets were certainly fascinated by
the goods displayed, for example,
the woman who shouted to her
husband You want to see tractors,
then go and see tractors, but leave
me alone! as she headed for the
displays of shoes and lingerie,
but Americans eavesdropping on
visitors conversations observed that,
overall, more negative than positive
comments were made. Despite
the pride and enthusiasm that
surrounded the exhibitions opening
in American public discourse, a
United States Information Agency
postmortem concluded that despite
the American medias presentation
of the fair as a smash hit that had
wowed Moscow, it wasnt, and it
didnt.
36

While average Soviet citizens
certainly wanted the government to
improve their living standards, they
were by no means swayed by The
American Way of Life presented
in American propaganda, and at
ANEM. Insofar as ANEM visitors
cast themselves as consumers, they
demonstrated a distinctly rational
attitude towards consumption, as
opposed to the irrational shopaholic
with insatiable desires. While in
Anne Andersons article in Better
Homes and Gardens she describes
how Soviet women wondered at
the model home and pushed aside
agitators, apologizing Ignore that
fool!, the most common attitude
towards the plethora of material
goods was one of skepticism and
criticism of American materialism; as
one citizen asked an American guide,
Nixon said that people buy ten to
twelve pairs of shoes. Why so many?
Are they so bad?
37
Many Soviets
expressed a more favorable view of
the Polish exhibition in Moscow than
that they held of ANEM it was
much smaller, but, in a way, it made
a better (if not bigger) impression;
the shipbuilding section there
was nothing like it at the American
show was really impressive; also
the consumer goods were attractive,
and the modern art (though our
more orthodox critics fumed about
it) interested people a lot. To the
apparent surprise of government
authorities, the kitchen debate did
not sell Soviets on the beneits of
liberal capitalism; on the contrary,
ANEM seemed to convince Soviets
of the merits of their own system.
As one Moscow worker stated, We
15
TROIKA
dont need such huge and luxurious
automobiles at this time. I wouldnt
buy one like that. But a little mini car
(mashinka) to drive with the family
on a mushiooming oi ishing outing
at the weekend thats what Id
buy.
39
While the American press
seemed unwilling to accept that
Soviets were indeed underwhelmed
by the 1959 fair, demonstrated, for
example, by the assertion of one
American reporter that Those
individuals who are not conditioned
by ideological outlook seem to
come away from the exhibition with
positive impressions, it was in fact so
most Soviets had been genuinely
disappointed by The American Way
of Life portrayed at ANEM.
40

The American model of freedom,
progress, and prosperity, based on
individual wealth and consumption,
was not desirable for Soviet people
if not accompanied by the core
beneits anu safety nets of socialism
while social security, housing and
free education and health care were
iuentiieu as souices of patiiotic
pride.
41
The civilian experience of
ANEM can be summed up by the
comments of a Russian journalist
who reported on the fair: People
were impressed, and yet not as much
as one might have expected. A few,
of course, were quite starry-eyed.
But most of them thought it was too
much like a department store, a sort
of super-GUM, with lots of very nice
goods, rather better than ours; but
so what? Wed catch up with them in
a few years where that sort of thing
was concerned. They hadnt had
a war the way we had; so what the
hell?
42

The years of the Khrushchev
thaw, from the mid-1950s to early
1960s allowed for the increased
exchange of ideas and visitors
between the United States and the
Soviet Union, facilitating civilian
involvement in the Cold War to an
extent previously unseen. In 1958
alone 7,000 Americans visited
the Soviet Union, and though the
number of Soviets who travelled to
the United States was much smaller,
given inancial stiains events like
ANEM allowed Soviets to both
interact with American civilians and
see for themselves the fabled The
American Way of Life, no matter
how skewed the image presented at
ANEM actually was. However, this
climate of relative openness did not
by any means lessen the extent to
which all interactions between the
two superpowers were perceived
as political, nor did it prevent the
Soviets and Americans from taking
any opportunity to one up the other
as David Zaslavsky wrote in Pravda
on November 7, 1959, the warmer
the international relations, the more
acute the ideological battle.
43

The kitchen debate illustrated
American and Soviet government
consensus that the future would be
determined by the economic system
that provided the best products for
the most people but also revealed
suipiising uieiences in Soviet
and American attitudes towards
consumer goods and the role of
government.
44
While the American
public eagerly supported the image of
their government as a transatlantic
crusader...striving for the satisfaction
of consumers every desire...against
the darkness of Third World poverty
and the dinginess of state socialism,
most Soviets were hesitant to jump
on the consumerist bandwagon.
45

While the Soviet government fought
to convince the Americans that we
have such things, the Soviet public
seemed to be asking whether they
really needed such things.
Notes
1
Clioiu E Claik }i RanchBouse Subuibia
Ideals and Realities, in Recasting America: Culture
and Politics in the Age of Cold War, ed. Lary May
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 171.
2
Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev, The Kitchen Debate, 1959,
Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev U.S. Embassy, Moscow,
Soviet Union. <http://teachingamericanhistory.
or g/l i brar y/i ndex. as p? doc ument =176>
3
Cynthia Lee Henthorn, From Submarines
to Suburbs: Selling a Better America, 1939-
1959 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006): 1.
4
Andrew L. Yarrow, Selling a New Vision of
America to the World: Changing Messages
in Early U.S. Cold War Print Propaganda,
Journal of Cold War Studies 11 (Fall 2009): 33.
5
Ibid
6
Jackson Lears, A Matter of Taste: Corporate
Cultural Hegemony in a Mass-Consumption
Society, in Recasting America: Culture and
Politics in the Age of Cold War, ed. Lary May
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989): 41.
7
Ibid,51.
8
Robert H. Haddow, Pavilions of Plenty: Exhibiting
American Culture Abroad in the 1950s (Washington,
DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997): 168.
9
Ibid, 159.
10
Marilyn S. Kushner, Exhibiting Art at the
American National Exhibition in Moscow 1959:
Domestic Politics and Cultural Diplomacy, Journal
of Cold War Studies 4 (Winter 2002):11.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Susan E. Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender
and the De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the
Soviet Union under Khrushchev, Slavic Review 61
(Summer, 2002): 892.
14
Henthorn, From Submarines to Suburbs, 3.
15
Interestingly, the title of this New York Times
article is Salesman for Capitalism.
16
Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American
Families in the Cold War Era (New York, NY: Basic
Books, 1998): 17.
17
Ibid, 20.
18
Karal Ann Marling, As Seen on TV: The Visual
Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1994): 260.
19
Jane M. Woolsey, Cold War in the Kitchen: The
Cultural Politics of the Kitchen Debate (MA thesis,
State University of New York College at Oneonta,
2001): 1959.
20
Ibid.
21
Henthorn, 230. From Submarines to Suburbs, 3.
22
David Brian Howard, Between Avant-Garde and
Kitsch: Pragmatic Liberalism, Public Arts Funding,
and the Cold War in the United States, Canadian
Review of American Studies 34 (2004): 294.
23
A. Anderson, I Might Have Been One in that
Russian Crowd! Better Homes and Gardens,
December 1959, 54.
24
Ibid.
25
Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender and the
De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the Soviet
Union under Khrushchev, 877.
26
G.A. Zhukov, head of the Soviet Unions
Committee for Cultural Relations and Abroad
argued that the Americans also used agitators
at the June 1959 Soviet National Exhibition.
He cites an August 2,1959 New York Times
article describing an Information Center for
Americans Visiting Russia on East 6th Street set
up by The Washington Institute for Government
Aaiis Zhukov alleges that the oiganizations
role was to distribute anti-Soviet propaganda
and facilitate espionage. Alexander Werth, The
Khrushchev Phase: The Soviet Union Enters
the Decisive Sixties (London: Hale, 1961):190.
27
Haddow, Pavilions of Plenty, 209.
28
Ibid.
Woolsey, Cold War in the Kitchen, xxii.
29
Nixon Will Visit Moscow in July to Open Exhibit,
New York Times, April 17, 1959.
31
Haddow, Pavillions of Plenty, 217.
32
Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev, The Kitchen Debate, 1959,
Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Soviet
Union. <http://teachingamericanhistory.org/
library/index.asp?document=176>
33
Ibid.
34
Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen, 879.
35
Ibid, 892.
36
Ibid, 857.
37
Ibid, 895.
38
Werth, The Khrushchev Phase, 173.
39
Reid, Cold War in the Kitchen, 878.
40
Ibid, 876.
41
Ibid, 903.
42
Werth, The Khrushchev Phase, 173.
43
Ibid, 188.
44
Haddow, Pavillions of Plenty, 214.
45
Paul Betts, The Rise and Fall of the American
Soft Empire, review of Irresistible Empire:
Americas Advance Through Twentieth Century
Europe, by Victoria DeGrazia, History Workshop
Journal, Spring 2007, 341.
Anna Matejcek
16
Julie Beigel-Coryell
Chopindimonium
On March 10, 2010, I rang in
Frdric Chopins 200th birthday
at UC Berkeley by surprising my
Polish class with gingerbread and
monopolizing the chalkboard
with the mammoth message:
Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji
urodzin Chopina! My excitement
provoked a few bemused smirks, but
otherwise no one seemed impressed
that the musical hero of Poland has
remained relevant for two centuries.
But considering his musics
precarious role throughout Polands
history, its a wonder that Chopins
legacy remains. As a political exile
in France after 1830, Chopin crafted
musical collections including dozens
of mazurkas and polonaises to
commemorate the Polish culture
that foi uecaues hau been stileu by
wars, failed uprisings, and foreign
occupations. Due to its inherent
Polishness, his music repeatedly
faced the same threats of erasure
endured by the nation itself. Public
performances of his works were
censured under tsarist rule in the
19th century. In the 20th century,
his music was banned under Nazi
occupation. It is no wonder, then,
that in a inally fiee anu inuepenuent
Poland, the Polish people cherish
his enduring music as a hallmark
of Polish resilience. Nor is it any
wonder that in 2010, Chopins name
would carry more celebrity in his
homeland than it did when he left
Warsaw 180 years before.
I hadnt planned to end up in
Warsaw for the Chopin bicentenary
celebrations, but its a welcome twist
of fate that I did. I have always been
a classical music fan but have been
particularly devoted to Chopins
music for the past several years. So
I nearly squealed with delight when
I landed at Warsaw Frederic Chopin
Airport (yes, this is really its name)
and found the city wallpapered
with announcements for nonstop
concerts, festivals, and tours in
celebration of His Year.
Without allowing time even to
overcome jet lag, I went to work. I
wore my shoes to the heel running
around town snapping photos of all
the Chopin posteis I coulu inu In
broken Polish, I asked shop owners
and the random passersby to capture
me posing precariously next to his
name, or holding my hand at just the
right angle so that his head would
appeai to be loating on my palm I
snacked on Chopin chocolates while
sitting on Chopin musical benches,
which, at the press of a button,
would play 30 second clips of his
compositions. I watched presidential
campaign commercials on loop, not
in interest of the historic election, but
because the ads were often scored
by Chopin etudes and preludes.
When given the choice of city transit
cards, I chose the commemorative
Chopin design. I toured the Chopin
museum, joined a busload of French
tourists and made my pilgrimage
to his birthplace at Zelazowa Wola,
then was nearly kicked out for sitting
at the piano while a Portuguese man
snapped photos of me pretending to
be Freddie. I treated the Chopin kiosk
on Nowy Swiat like my own personal
church. I would sit in the only chair
in the corner, hands folded piously in
my lap as I watched Chopin videos
play for hours. They broadcasted
everything in there, from a music
video re-enacting the destruction
of Chopins piano to Latin dancers
tangoing across Chopin airport to
a waltz remix. I bought books and
CDs knowing all proceeds went to
the Chopin Institute, and traipsed
around Warsaw with armfuls of
brochures and tourist maps with
names like Chopins Warsaw or In
Chopins Footsteps. And I walked in
his footsteps, let me tell you. I saw
his sisters apartment, his university,
his heart in the Holy Cross church.
On Sundays I would attend the
Chopin concerts at Lazienki Park
with eager dedication. There, I
would lie on the grass and close my
eyes and half-expect to see visions of
wiry hair and a crooked nose. I felt
like a child on Halloween, running
from neighborhood to neighborhood
collecting as many treats as I could
and gobbling them up in quick
succession.
But within three weeks, the
queasiness set in. It began when I
saw a tourist in a gift shop unwrap a
Chopin tiufle sni it then put it back
on the shelf for someone else to buy.
It was then that I thought Varsovians
might not be as stoked on Chopin as
all the publicity made them out to be.
Maybe Chopin is for them what Pier
39 is to San Franciscans, or Times
Square is to New Yorkers. Maybe
what began as a hallmark of Polish
culture has become as ubiquitous and
unoriginal as an I NY t-shirt. No
matter how remarkable a historical
icon is, if you are bombarded by it,
and if you see it tainted by ravenous
tourists, it begins to lose its appeal.
And maybe it was the same with
Chopin. My own Chopin binge had
left me feeling a bit perverse. I once
saw a poster that was nothing more
than a sketch of an eyeball and I knew
instantly that it was Chopins eyeball.
I dont know that I would recognize
my own mothers eyeball, yet there
I was, snapping a photo of Chopins
graphite eye to add to my collection.
For my last few days in Warsaw,
I decided to take it easy on the
Chopinailia I iesisteu the uige to
photograph every concert poster
I saw. I didnt obsessively replay
the musical benches and I stopped
admiring my Chopin transit card
before going to bed at night. Instead
of following his two hundred year old
footsteps in my now-tattered shoes,
I spent time visiting non-Chopin
museums attenuing ilm festivals
instead of music festivals, strolling
through Lazienki Park on weekdays
rather than concert weekends, and
glumly preparing myself to say good-
bye to what had quickly become my
new home.
I spent my last night in Warsaw
sharing hot fudge sundaes with
my roommates at Wedel Chocolate
Shop in the city center. Chopins
Minute Waltz came on the caf
radio, prompting two Polish women
in a booth next to ours to chat about
an upcoming Chopin festival that
would last 31 days and feature over
2,000 performers. Overhearing this,
I smiled to myself, realizing at once
that I coulu inally compiehenu
words like two-thousand and
performers and fantastic! and
that I could welcome Chopin back
into my diet. Chopins year was not
just for tourists. On the contrary,
it provoked in the locals the same
thrill that I had experienced when
stammering out grammatically
atrocious requests for concert tickets
17
at the beginning of my stay. Perhaps
the Varsovians I passed in the street
had been speaking about Chopins
year this whole time, it just took me
six weeks to understand.
After taking one last stroll
around Centrum, my roommates and
I approached the tram platform for
oui inal iiue back to oui apaitment
To their confusion, I didnt board the
tram, but opted for the hour-long
walk home instead. It was late, and
I hau a light the next moining but
this was my last night in Warsaw
in 2010, His Year. Marszalkowska
Street was lined with fresh Chopin
posters advertising the next wave of
concerts and exhibits in his memory,
and I couldnt leave Warsaw without
relishing the scene.
Yes, plastering his face all over
the city might be overkill. But
even after these centuries, even
after partitions and wars that took
Polanu o the map even aftei this
city was systematically destroyed
then systematically rebuilt, Chopins
music still echoes in its parks and
halls. His heart still rests in Warsaw.
And these days, back home in my
Chopinless town, I wonder if mine
does too.
TROIKA
Factory near Pcim, Poland. Julia Nowak
18
Yuriev Monastery, Novgrod, Russia. Marina Irgon
19
Volga Halo, Russia. Katarina White
Statues in Poland. Julia Nowak
20
21
Books for Sale, Lvov, Ukraine. Christina Monzer
The Aral Sea Disaster: Unequal Restoration Progress in
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
The Aral Sea at one time the
worlds fourth largest lake is today
only a fraction of its original size.
With all ish in the southein pait of the
Sea dead
1
and only about one-fourth
of its original volume remaining (see
Figure 1), the destruction of the Aral
Sea has become one of the worlds
great environmental tragedies.
2

The Aral is situated on the western
Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border and
is fed by the Syr Darya River in the
north and the Amu Darya River in the
south. For years, the surrounding
communities have depended on
these waters for their livelihoods.
Today, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya
rivers have been used so extensively
for irrigation that they barely reach
the Aral Sea in some years (see
Table 1).
3
The Arals depletion has
destroyed not only the local economy,
but peoples lives as well.
Cities which once lay on the
coast anu ielieu on ishing inuustiies
for survival are now in the middle of
a desert. As the seas water levels
decrease, the sea bed becomes an
exposed saline desert
4
, which
has led to an increase in incidences
of respiratory problems in the
surrounding areas.
5
Furthermore,
after years of irrigating deserts
which are naturally arid, the lands
surrounding the Aral Sea have
become increasingly waterlogged
and salinized, leading not only
to poor crop yields, but drinking
water which is unsuitable for
human consumption.
6
For example,
Karakalpakstan, an autonomous
republic in western Uzbekistan
which borders the Aral, is most
seveiely aecteu by the uesiccation
of the sea. The regions economy has
sueieu with up to ninety peicent
of Karakalpakstans population
designated as poor or severely
poor by the Asian Development
Bank. Still worse, almost 50 percent
of Karakalpakstans population does
not have access to drinking water,
and the groundwater supplies have
increasingly becomeundrinkable.
7

In addition, a drought in 2000
caused grain production in all of
Uzbekistan to decrease by roughly
six percent, while the production in
Kaiakalpakstan uecieaseu by ifty
four percent in the same year.
8

While the Aral Sea crisis primarily
aects those living in Kazakhstan anu
Uzbekistan, each of the Central Asian
states are involved in water-sharing
agreements between up- and down-
stream riparian states regarding
the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers.
9

However, irrigation is where most of
the rivers waters are lost on the way
to the Aral Sea, and both Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan are down-stream
states which rely heavily on irrigation
for their agricultural sectors.
10

0ltimately to eect change in anu
around the Aral Sea, Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan must reconsider
their current water-usage habits.
To date, both nations have begun to
address the Aral Sea crisis both
directly and indirectly. Despite the
most adverse environmental, health
anu economic eects of the Aials
depletion observed in the South Aral
Sea, more progress toward the seas
restoration has been documented in
the North Aral Sea.
This paper will examine
why, although the most alarming
consequences of the Arals
destruction have been witnessed
in 0zbekistan moie eoits have
been made to rehabilitate the North
Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. First, the
paper will examine the history of
agriculture in the Aral Sea Basin, as
the over-exploitation of agriculture
has led to the Arals destruction.
Then it will biiely uesciibe the
current state of the economies in
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Later,
it will discuss what the two states
have done to address their water
use and its consequences for their
population and their portion of the
sea. Finally, the paper will discuss
several reasons why Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan may be addressing
the same pioblem uieiently

History of agriculture in the Aral
Sea Basin

At least since Russian colonial
expansion began in Central Asia
in the middle of the 19th century,
cotton production has been a priority
in the region.
11
Cotton has become
such an integral part of life in Central
Asia that Erika Weinthal asserts,
In Central Asia, to understand
water is to understand cotton.
12

For years, Central Asians
inhabiting present-day Kazakhstan
were nomadic peoples, with the
majority of sedentary populations
Figure 1. Depletion of the Aral Sea since 1960. Source:
(Britannica Online Encyclopedia)
Rhianna Patrinely
22
TROIKA
Table 1. Aral Sea year inflow of water from Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers (km3). Source: (Weinthal 3), selected dates.
located in the south, around present-
day Uzbekistan.
13
As a settled,
crop-cultivating society, southern
inhabitants already had established
irrigation and crop rotation practices
which were adequate to maintain
crop yields and the state of the
surrounding environment.
14
As the
Russian Empire expanded in Central
Asia, it sought to expand its textile
industries by urging these sedentary
populations to grow cotton.
15
By 1909,
the Russians were seeing results; in
lands that had once produced wheat,
barley, millet, alfalfa and fruits, 25
percent of the irrigated area [was]
devoted to the planting of cotton.
16

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the
Soviet Union saw a need to further
expand cotton production, making
Central Asia the only source of cotton
production in the entire country.
The Soviet Union aimed to
achieve selfsuficiency in cotton
production,
17
and in order to do so,
uevoteu eveiy eoit to incieasing
production. Traditional irrigation
and crop rotation methods were
too slow, so instead the Soviet
government used endless amounts
of fertilizers along with various
pesticides and defoliantsto aid the
growing and harvesting periods.
18

These ineficient methous of cotton
production, combined with ever-
increasing, unattainable production
output targets began the processes
of environmental degradation and
industry corruption witnessed in the
region, especially Uzbekistan, today.
After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the newly independent
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were
left to develop their industries
and economies in their own ways,
which included addressing how
extensively they wanted to rely on
cotton. Kazakhstan moved toward
developing and privatizing its oil
and gas companies, but Uzbekistan
remained highly dependent on the
cotton monoculture which had
dominated the Soviet period.
19

What the two states (as well as the
other Central Asian states) realized,
uespite uieiences in economic
approaches, was the need to jointly
address the problem of the Aral
Sea. By September 1992, the water
ministeis of all ive Cential Asian
states had reached out to the World
Bank for assistance with water
management and environmental
stabilization in the Aral Sea basin.
20

Since then, some states have
worked harder than others toward
the Aral Seas restoration. In
Uzbekistan, some individuals and
groups involved in cotton production,
whose corrupt, rent-seeking practices
biought pioits uuiing the Soviet
period, were unwilling to relinquish
the wealth and power they had
become accustomed to.
21
Weinthal
suggests that cotton production
became a system of control in
the region, and any reduction of
cotton production in Uzbekistan,
for example, might lead to rising
unemployment followed by mass
migration to urban areas, discontent
and political and social upheaval,
which would jeopardize the system of
control.
22
Consequently little eoit
has been made to move away from
cotton dependency in Uzbekistan.
Additionally, international aid
received might have been used by
the new governments not only as
the funds were intended to address
issues related to the Aral Sea, but to
ensure the governments continued
iule by paying o econationalists
opposed to the regions reliance
on cotton monoculture.
23
By
bribing the opposition, the new
governments could maintain their
system of social control. Especially
in Uzbekistan, corruption and
heavy reliance on cotton has
persisted into the present day.
Economies of Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan

After they became independent
states in 1991, Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan approached economic
uevelopment in uieient ways
Kazakhstan looked to integrate into
the world economy and began to
privatize its oil and gas companies,
which helped the country to
acquire foreign capital.
24
In
contrast, Uzbekistan chose a
gradual approach to transition
and maintained its strong state
control over industries, with the
aim to achieve selfsuficiency in
many sectors of the economy.
25

Uzbekistan chose to continue the
mass production of cotton, using
its revenue to cushion the initial
shock of moving away from the old
Soviet system.
26
The uieiences
in these early approaches to
economic development have caused
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to follow
uieient tiajectoiies which may
have an eect on the feasibility of
reducing water consumption to save
the Aral Sea.
Today, with an emphasis on
less water-dependent industries,
Kazakhstan may be better suited
to reduce and change its water-use
habits, which would improve the
condition of the Syr Darya River and
the North Aral Sea. The country
is heavily reliant on extractive
resources; in 2008, 73 percent of
exports and 39 percent of GDP were
generated by the mineral, oil and
gas industries.
27
In 2009, oil and
oil products alone accounted for 59
percent of Kazakhstans exports.
28

Additionally, the bulk of Kazakhstans
investments in cultural development
and in infrastructure are in the
westein most eective oilpiouucing
regions of the country.
29
There is far
less investment in the northern and
eastern portions of the country
30
,
23
where most of its agricultural
production is located.
31
This may be
due to the fact that only 6.4 percent
of Kazakhstans GDP is produced by
the agricultural sector.
32

Unlike Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan
is less prepared to reduce its water
consumption. Agriculture accounts
for 26.8 percent of Uzbekistans
GDP, with cotton being the nations
second largest export.
33
Agriculture,
anu speciically cotton is so
important in Uzbekistan today that
the government shuts down schools
during the harvest and requires
teachers and students to help pick
cotton or face expulsion unless
they can aoiu the monetaiy biibe
required to avoid it.
34

Kazakhstan has recognized the
need to diversify its economy if it
wishes to reduce its vulnerability to
oil piice luctuations
35
Unfortunately,
there is little information available
from the Uzbek government
regarding its economy and any
future plans to move away from such
dependence on cotton. The Uzbek
government is not a transparent one;
it ranks 174th out of 180 countries
on Transparency Internationals
Corruption Perceptions Index.
Addressing the Aral Sea Crisis
As newly independent
states after the Soviet Unions
collapse, water-sharing agreements
established under Soviet rule were
no longer applicable. The Syr Darya
and Amu Darya river basins, which
once were located within the borders
of the same state, now spanned each
of the ive Cential Asian states anu
a portion of Afghanistan and Iran
(see Figure 2). New water-sharing
agreements were unavoidable
because upstream riparian states like
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, who use
very little of the water from the rivers,
were interested in generating their
own hydropower, while downstream
riparian states like Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan wished to continue large
water consumption for the purposes
of irrigated agriculture.
36
Without
new water-sharing agreements,
there may have been a greater
likelihoou of iegional conlict ovei
water resources.
37

In the ive Cential Asian
states signed an agreement, which
formed the Interstate Commission
on Water Coordination (ICWC)
to regulate water resource use.
38

In the ive states signeu
another agreement to cooperate in
addressing the Aral Sea crisis. The
1993 agreement established another
organization, the Interstate Council
on the Problems of the Aral Sea
Basin, ICAS, designed to facilitate
assistance from the World Bank
Figure 2. The Aral Sea Basin. Source: (Micklin 507).
and other international donors.
39

Unfortunately, many organizations
and agreements established
among the Central Asian states
have been ineective extiemely
limited in scope, or have largely
gone unimplemented.
40
Perhaps
in part because of the seeming
inability of the Central Asian states
to eect change on theii own the
international community has become
involved in saving the Aral Sea and
its surrounding populations.
Various international agencies
have extended their aid to Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan to address the
desiccation of the Aral Sea and water
resource management. Most notably,
the Asian Development Bank and
the World Bank have implemented
projects in the two states. However,
the number of projects implemented
and the funds allocated for projects
in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have
not been equal.
Three projects related to
water management and the Aral
Sea crisis have been initiated by
the Asian Development Bank in
Uzbekistan. First, the Uzbekistan
Land Improvement Project aims
to increase income for farmers, and
improve land sustainability and
productivity.
41
Next, the Western
Uzbekistan Rural Water Supply
Project aimed to improve sanitation
and potable water supplies for
populations living near the Aral Sea.
42

Finally, the Supporting Innovative
Poverty Reduction in Karakalpakstan
Project was intended to generate
income, better infrastructure, and
safe drinking water for residents of
Karakalpakstan.
43
Interestingly, the
last two projects, which address the
region most in need of assistance in
Uzbekistan, have only been allocated
$68.28 million - $65 million for the
Western Uzbekistan Rural Water
Supply Project and $3.28 million for
poverty reduction in Karakalpakstan
while the Uzbekistan Land
Improvement Project has been
allocated $76.2 million and addresses
only the eastern regions of Bukhara,
Samarkand, and Kashkadarya (see
Figure 3).
The Asian Development Bank
also initiated the Water Resources
Management and Land Improvement
Project in Kazakhstan, which
Rhianna Patrinely
24
TROIKA
was allocated $55.1 million. The
projects goals were to improve the
environment by improving irrigation
eficiency as well as sustaining faim
productivity.
44
Indeed, agricultural
productivity in the project area
increased by 38 percent from
1999 to 2004 and was expected to
increase by 111 percent by 2009.
45

Additionally, crop rotation was
reintroduced and the percentage of
agricultural land allotted for cotton
fell from 94 percent of land in 2004
to 86 percent in 2005.
46

The World Bank alone has
conducted 35 projects in Kazakhstan
and only six in Uzbekistan.
47
The
large disparity between the two may
be due, in part, to a more centralized
Uzbek government, resistant to
inteinational inluence In auuition
with so many more projects
implemented in Kazakhstan, it seems
logical that there has been more
progress in restoring the North Aral
Sea than the South Aral.
In 2005, the eight-mile long
Kok-Aral Dam was completed in
Figure 3. Map of project area for the Uzbekistan Land Improvement Project. (ADB 2008)
Kazakhstan as part of the $85.79
million Syr Darya Control and
Northern Aral Sea Project, which
began in 2001.
48
The dam separates
the North and South Aral Seas,
allowing water from the Syr Darya
iivei to ieill the Noith Aial As eaily
as ishing inuustiies weie
beginning to recover, with more
ish species ietuining to the Aial
49

The restoration of the North Aral
has not only helped to improve the
surrounding economy; health in the
region has also improved because the
exposed salt beds are again covered
with water, and the salinity of water
resources has slightly decreased.
50

Furthermore, the project is slowly
assisting with the recovery of the
South Aral Sea, as excess water
from the North Aral is occasionally
let through the dam into the South
Aral.
51
After the Kazakh project proved
to be successful, the World Bank
expanded into Uzbekistan. In
2003, the World Bank initiated the
Drainage, Irrigation and Wetlands
Improvement Project in Uzbekistan.
The $74.55 million project is intended
to improve the water quality of the
Amu Darya and increase productive
agiicultuie via eficient iiiigation in
Karakalpakstan.
52

In addition to the projects
of the Asian Development and
World Banks, the United Nations
Euucational Scientiic anu Cultuial
Organization, UNESCO, has put forth
a Water-Related Vision for the
Aral Sea Basin for the Year 2025.
UNESCO has placed emphasis on
what the people in the region want
the future to be and what they can
do themselves.
53
Besides reducing
child mortality and increasing life
expectancy and income, goals related
to water resource management
and access to water resources are
addressed in the vision. At the time
the vision was put forth, the average
water use per hectare of cotton was
12,000 cubic meters, and by 2025,
UNESCO hopes to reduce water usage
to less than 8,000 cubic meters per
hectaie of cotton Watei eficiency
25
at the time was about 40 percent;
the aim for 2025 is to increase water
eficiency in ielus to gieatei than
75 percent.
54
Finally, to address the
issue of safe drinking water in rural
areas, covered, piped water supplies
are to be increased from 26 percent
at the time the vision was proposed
to greater than 60 percent in 2025.
55

With so much international
involvement in Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan, one might expect to
see the two states quickly change
their agricultural policies, as a way
to appease international donors. It
may be moie uificult if policy change
is attempted after international
organizations complete projects
in Central Asia and look to other
issues, in other regions of the
world. Changes in policy may be
easier while extra support in the
form of international organizations
and monetary aid is already in
each country. However, MacKay
does not foresee agricultural policy
changes being made in Central Asia
any time soon. He asserts, While
the governments openly repudiate
Soviet-era agricultural policy, their
implicit policy is to continue it,
suggesting little immediate prospect
for change in the region.
56


Additional Factors
In addition to a history of cotton
monoculture and current economic
dependence on cotton, there are
several reasons why Uzbekistan may
be more reluctant than Kazakhstan
to address the issues surrounding
the Aral Seas depletion. There are
various incentives and disincentives
for each country to move away from
cotton monoculture and to begin
eoits to iestoie the Aial Sea
Kazakhstan has several incentives
to address the Aral Seas depletion
and begin environmental restoration
in the Syr Darya River basin. First,
the country may have more incentive
to address environmental and health
issues in the Aral Sea region because
they aie unuei the iguiative global
microscope. As Kazakhstan seeks to
attract foreign direct investment for
their industries, the country must
make eoits to auuiess issues that
might be important to those foreign
investors especially those from the
West, who are typically concerned
with such issues as human rights and
the environment. Furthermore, much
of the world is looking to Kazakhstan,
the new 2010 Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe,
or OSCE, chair with a critical
eye. The OSCE addresses issues
such as human rights, national
minoritiesand economic and
environmental activities.
57
Many
people have questioned whether or
not Kazakhstan is indeed the best
choice to chair the organization,
since the countiy is the iist to chaii
the organization and while being
classiieu as not fiee
58

Second, as Kazakhstan seeks to
fulill its Kazakhstan pioject
the country cannot help but to
address environmental and health
issues which aect its citizens
The projects motto is prosperity,
security and improved living
standards for all Kazakhs.
59
Some
programs in the project include:
Developing Agricultural Land,
Drinking Water Supplies, and a
piogiam to combat ueseitiication
all of which must inevitably deal with
the Aral Sea region.
60

Finally, Kazakhstans most
important industries are the oil and
gas industries not agriculture.
The highly eective oilpiouucing
territories in the western part of
Kazakhstan produce a large amount
of wealth, are predominantly
inhabited by ethnic Kazakhs, and
are seen as the most Kazakh
portions of the country.
61
The
Kazakh government has invested
more money for infrastructure in
these highly eective teiiitoiies than
elsewhere in the country, partially to
help build a national identity which
excludes minorities, and partially in
order to maintain production levels in
the region.
62
Interestingly, although
there have been improvements in the
environment and the health of people
surrounding the Northern Aral Sea,
some improvements may not have
been intentional. While the Aral Sea
is on the governments mind, there
may be an element of coincidence
that some of the increases in
health and living standards have
happened so close to the Aral Sea.
Some improvements may actually
be by-products, or spill-overs,
from investment aimed at the more
eective oilpiouucing teiiitoiy in
the west; the Aral Sea is conveniently
situated in the same region.
Unlike Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan has fewer incentives
for change in water-use policy, and
therefore, more disincentives to
address the depletion of the Aral Sea
and the health of the residents in
Karakalpakstan. First, cotton is used
as a system of control by the Uzbek
government.
63
The agricultural
industry employs 44 percent of
Uzbekistans labor force.
64
If the
country were to decrease cotton
production, unemployment would
rise, creating a potential mass
migration of people to the cities in
search of work, which might cause
overcrowding and civil unrest.
65

Rather than face these possible
outcomes, the government chooses
to maintain high levels of cotton
production, which serves to keep
populations in the rural portions of
the country.
Seconuly moie eficient iiiigation
systems might be considered to help
prevent excessive water withdrawals
from the Amu Darya River and allow
moie watei to low into the South Aial
This option, though, is unattractive
and carries few incentives for
the Uzbek government. Roughly
5.4 million hectares of irrigation
systems would need to be replaced,
with a cost of $3,000 to $4,000
per hectare; such a project would
amount to a total $16 billion bill,
which 0zbekistan cannot aoiu to
pay.
66
Alternatively, replacing cotton
in favor of less water-intensive grain
crops would be less expensive than
replacing old irrigation systems and
moie beneicial foi the enviionment
However, doing so may not yield
highei pioits pei hectaie of lanu than
cotton, making it too, an unattractive
option for the Uzbek government.
Thirdly, Karakalpaks are a
minority population, closely related
to Kazakhs, living in western
Uzbekistan.
67
Because Karakalpaks
are a minority, and because the
Ferghana Valley is more fertile than
the western portion of the country,
the Uzbek government may see the
Karakalpak population as too small
or not productive enough to warrant
massive health and environmental
Rhianna Patrinely
26
improvement projects in the region.
In fact, it seems the government of
Uzbekistan may be trying to force
the migration of Karakalpaks out
of the country. There has recently
been a laige inlux of ethnic 0zbeks
to the region, and street names have
been changed from Karakalpak-
to Uzbek-language names.
68


Conclusion
The Aral Sea crisis stems from
excessive water use from the Syr
Darya and Amu Darya Rivers,
and so involves all of the Central
Asian riparian states. However,
the downstream states, especially
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are
aecteu most seveiely by the
Arals depletion. The most severe
environmental degradation and
adverse health conditions have been
recorded in Karakalpakstan, but
as evidenced, Kazakhstan and the
Northern Aral Sea have seen more
progress in the restoration of the
environment and regional health.
Several reasons account for more
progress in the north, despite more
dire conditions in the south.
Kazakhstan has moved away
from dependence on agriculture,
instead fostering the growth of its
extractive resources sector. Less
water is needed for these sectors,
allowing more water from the
Syi Baiya to low into the Aial
Sea once again. On the contrary,
Uzbekistan has continued the cotton
monoculture of the Soviet period
and still requires massive amounts
of water to maintain its yearly crop.
Additionally, Kazakhstan has
attracted a greater quantity of
typically higher-budget projects
from international agencies. This has
allowed Kazakhstan to reform their
water-usage habits more quickly and
on a larger scale than Uzbekistan.
For example, the Kok-Aral Dam
would not have been feasible without
international assistance.
Perhaps most importantly,
Kazakhstan has greater international
incentive to eect change in the Aial
Sea region. In contrast, Uzbekistan
has expressed a desire to be self-
reliant in various economic sectors,
making the country less receptive to
pressure from valuable international
partnerships calling for change water
use and policy in the Aral Sea basin.
Progress seen in the North Aral
Sea is encouraging, but the South
Aral Sea needs desperately to be
addressed by Uzbekistan and the
international community. Regardless
of what measures are taken, it seems
unlikely that the Aral Sea will be
restored to its pre-Soviet condition.
69

Sadly, at the present time it seems no
incentives are convincing enough
for Uzbekistan to abandon cotton
monocultuie oi at least signiicantly
reduce its reliance on the production
of cotton. Change will only take place
in Uzbekistan if there are adequate
incentives viewed from within and
oeieu fiom without
Notes
1
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian
Ecologists Say All Fish Dead in South Aral Sea 25
September 2009
2
Joseph MacKay, Running Dry: International
Law and the Management of Aral Sea Depletion,
Central Asian Survey 28.1 (2009); 17
3
Philip Micklin, Water in the Aral Sea Basin of
Cential Asia Cause of Conlict oi Coopeiation
Eurasian Geography and Economics 43.7 (2002);
512
4
MacKay Running Dry, p. 18
5
Osamu Kunii et al., Respiratory Symptoms and
Pulmonary Function among School-Age Children
in the Aral Sea Region, Archives of Environmental
Health 58.11 (2003); 676-682
6
Asian Development Bank, Proposed Grant
Assistance to the Republic of Uzbekistan for the
Supporting Innovative Poverty Reduction in
Karakalpakstan Project (2001)
7
Asian Development Bank, Proposed Grant
8
Ibid
9
Erika Weinthal, Sins of Omission: Construting
Negotiating Sets in the Aral Sea Basin, The Journal
of Environment and Development (2001); 50-79
10
Micklin, Water in the Aral Sea Basin, p. 512
11
Erika Weinthal, State Making and Environmental
Cooperation: Linking Domestic and International
Politics in Central Asia (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 2002)
12
Weinthal, State Making p. 95
13
Ibid p. 75-76
14
Ibid p. 77
15
Ibid p. 74-75
16
Ibid p. 77-78
17
Ibid p. 82
18
Ibid p. 89
19
Ibid p. 126
20
Ian Small and Noah Bunce, The Aral Sea Disaster
and the Disaster of International Assistance,
Journal of International Affairs 56 (2003)
21
Weinthal, State Making p. 101, 159
22
Ibid p. 20
23
Ibid p. 131
24
Ibid p. 126
25
World Bank, Uzbekistan Country Brief 2010 <
http://www.worldbank.org.uz >
26
Weinthal, State Making p. 125
27
World Bank, Kazakhstan Country Brief 2010 <
http://www.worldbank.org.uz >
28
Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World
Factbook (2010) < http://www.cia.gov/library/
publications/the-world-factbook/index.html >
29
Cristin Burke, Social and Economic Development
in Kazakhstan, Culture and Security in Central Asia.
Lawrence, KS, 23 April 2010
30
Burke, Social and Economic Development
31
USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Kazakhstan
Wheat Production: An Overview (2003) <http://
www.fas.usda.gov>
32
CIA, World Factbook
33
Ibid
34
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Uzbek
Students Regularly Expelled For Not Picking
Cotton, 6 December 2009
35
World Bank, Kazakhstan Brief
36
Micklin, Water in the Aral Sea Basin, p. 507
37
Binai Shlomi Watei Seuiity Conlict anu
Cooperation, SAIS Review 22 (2002)
38
Micklin, Water in the Aral Sea Basin, p. 507
39
Ibid p. 518
40
MacKay, Running Dry, p. 20
41
Asian Development Bank, Uzbekistan Land
Improvement Project, (2008)
42
Asian Development Bank, Western Uzbekistan
Rural Water Supply Project, (2002)
43
Asian Development Bank, Proposed Grant
Assistance
44
Asian Development Bank, Kazakhstan: Water
Resources Management and Land Improvement
Project, (2007)
45
Asian Development Bank, Kazakhstan: Water
Resources Project
46
Ibid
47
World Bank, Kazakhstan Brief
48
World Bank, Saving a Corner of the Aral Sea,
The World Bank- Kazakhstan (2005)
49
World Bank, Miraculous Catch in Kazakhstans
Northern Aral Sea, (2006)
50
World Bank, Saving a Corner
51
Ibid
52
World Bank, Drainage, Irrigation and Wetlands
Improvement Project- Phase 1, World Bank-
Uzbekistan Projects (2010)
53
UNESCO, Water-Related Vision for the Aral Sea
Basin for the Year 2025, (1997)
54
UNESCO, Water-Related Vision
55
Ibid
56
MacKay, Running Dry, p. 25
57
OSCE, The Organization for Security and Co-
operation in Europe (2010)
58
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, U.S. Welcomes
Kazakhstan as OSCE Chair, but Raises its Record on
Rights, 2 February 2010
59
ECOSOC, Kazakhstan-2030: Prosperity, Security
and Improved Living Standards for all Kazakhs
(2008)
60
ECOSOC, Kazakhstan-2030
61
Burke, Social and Economic Development
62
Ibid
63
Weinthal, Sins of Omission, p. 97
64
CIA, Fact Book
65
Weinthal, State Making p. 100
66
Micklin, Water in the Aral Sea Basin, p. 515
67
UNHCR, The UN Refugee Agency- World Directory
of Minorities and Indigenous Peopless- Uzbekistan,
(2008)
68
UNHCR, World Directory
69
Micklin, Water in the Aral Sea Basin, p. 513
TROIKA
27
Translation of Vrednye sovety dlya detej starshego vozrasta
Jenny Oberholtzer
When your dearest darling mother
Takes you to the dentists chair
Do not wait for mercy from her.
And do not shed salt tears or swear!

Clam up, you captured partisan!
And really clench your jaws
So that they cannot be undone
By a thousand dentists claws.








Oster G. B,
Vrednye sovety dlya detej starshego vozrasta.
Moscow: AST Publishing, 2010.
28
It is a well-known fact children will without fail do the complete opposite of what
you tell them to do. Following this logic, a famous Russian humorist decided to write a book
of bad advice for children, since, obviously, kids who read it will do the opposite and in this
way will be ensnared to behave properly.
The above work is one among the many gems of the Big Bad Book of Bad Advice,
which also features other guidance such as the advantages of hysterical fits to obtain toys,
how to crash-stop on a bicycle into your father and the correct wall surface for mothers
day congratulations.
Written in an idiosyncratic language targeted to children, and featuring cliches of
Russian, but not American, childs play such as partisans, the translation of this poem was
quite challenging. Nonetheless, as you can see, the translator managed to produce a truly
delightful work.
-Olga Slobodyanyuk
Managing Editor
Political Elites in a Croatian Context:
Homogeneity and its role in political decision making in Croatia
Geoff Allen
Croatia is a country that has, in
eect been iuleu by the same paity
since independence in 1991. It proves
a very interesting study, especially
when looking at issues of the political
elite, those who hold a national
political standing, either in the
parliament or the executive branch.
Examining the national level political
elite in Croatia by focusing on elite
recruitment and homogeneity, inter-
elite competition and coexistence,
elite-mass relations, and elite policy
making, this paper will show that the
political elite of Croatia, despite the
fact that they have only recently been
formally established, are a relatively
homogeneous and somewhat self
aware group that has distinct policy
preferences and an established
weltanschauung.
Croatian politics have taken
place in a parliamentary system
since the constitutional reforms in
2000, which were a backlash to the
autocratic rule of President Franjo
Tudman These iefoims shifteu the
country from a semi-presidential
system to a new parliamentary
system, and drastically reduced the
role the President of Croatia plays in
politics in favor of the Prime Minister.
1

The next year, the legislative branch
was reformed, eliminating the upper
house and creating a unicameral
legislature elected primarily through
proportional representation in multi-
member constituencies.
2
These
reforms were key measures taken
in the democratization of Croatia,
which hau laigely lounueieu uuiing
the conlicts anu tuibulence of the
1990s.
Politics in Croatia revolve
around political parties, as in almost
all parliamentary systems. The
dominant party in Croatia since
inuepenuence anu signiicantly
in the last decade, has been the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ),
which has controlled the largest
number of seats in parliament since
2003.
3
The HDZ is a center-right
political party that is currently the
dominant member of the governing
coalition, holding 66 of 153 seats in
parliament.
4
The next biggest party
and largest opposition in parliament
is the Social Democratic Party, the
center left party that holds 56 seats
in parliament.
5
Together, these
two political parties have been the
dominant political parties in Croatia
since independence.
There are a number of smaller
yet signiicant paities that holu
parliamentary seats and are essential
in forming coalition governments, as
no party has controlled a plurality
of seats in the last decade. On the
political right stand the Croatian
Rights Party (HSP) with one seat and
the Croatian Democratic Assembly of
Slavonija and Baranja (HDSSB) with
three. In the center sits the coalition
bloc of the Croatian Peasants
Party (HSS)-Croatian Social Liberal
Party (HSLS) -Alliance of Primorje-
Gorski (PGS), which took eight seats
in parliament in 2007.
6
On the
left stand the Istrian Democratic
Assembly (IDS) with three seats
and the Croatian Peoples Party-
Liberal Democrats (HNS) with seven
seats.
7
The Croatian Pensioners
Party carried one seat in 2007 as
a single issue party. In Croatias
legislature, seats are reserved for
ethnic minorities, who vote for their
preferred candidate or candidates
in a single-member vote; the largest
anu most signiicant minoiity
party in Croatia is the Independent
Democratic Serbian Party, which won
all three seats reserved for Serbians in
2007.
8
Other represented minorities
include Czechs and Slovaks,
Hungarians, Italians, Albanians and
other minorities from the Former
Yugoslavia, and any other minority,
all of whom hold one seat.
9

The members of the legislature,
uespite theii uieiing political
afiliations aie a veiy homogeneous
group, with similar age, sex, and
educational backgrounds. The
parliament is predominantly
made up of males while 25% of
the members of parliament are
women.
10
Only the SDP, with women
representing just over 35% of their
seats, and the HNP, with women
representing 40% of their seats, have
female representation levels higher
than the average.
11
Though women
in Croatia may be better represented
than in some countries, they are still
a minority in parliament. It is also
telling that issues of adequate female
representation are not often brought
up in parliament, and are not large
parts of any partys platform. Another
aspect of homogeneity is age, with
the vast majority of members of
parliament being between the ages
of 40 and 60.
12

Educational background is
also a homogenizing factor for the
legislative elite. Approximately 70%
of Croatian MPs hold a university
degree.
13
Of an even more interesting
nature is the fact that every Prime
Minister of Croatia in the 21st
century, with the exception of the
present PM Jadranka Kosor, has held
a Ph.D. Of these university educated
members of the executive and
legislative branches, a large number
have degrees earned at the University
of Zagreb. This particular statistic is
more easily seen when examining
the educational backgrounds of the
cabinet of the governing coalition
in Croatia, which is made up of the
HDZ, HSLS, HSS and SDSS.
14
Of
19 cabinet ministers, educational
data could be found on eleven;
of those eleven, every individual
holds at least one degree from the
University of Zagreb.
15
This is a very
noticeable level of homogeneity in
the very highest reaches of Croatias
government, and forces an outside
observer to wonder how much
this has hau an aect on the policy
preferences of the political elite.
In order to better understand
the competition between the various
political parties, it is important to
29
unueistanu the uieiences in paity
platforms, the interactions between
the various parties, and the level of
cooperation within the parties and
governing coalitions themselves.
The HDZ and SDP are constantly in
competition with each other. For
the most part, the HDZ has been
the winner, being in opposition only
once, at the very beginning of the
decade.
16
Since then, the HDZ has
eectively contiolleu pailiament
through clever coalition building.
Despite its association with the
right and its background as the
Croatian nationalist party, the HDZ
has managed to pull in minority
representatives in all of its cabinets
since 2003, including the Serbian
representatives of the SDSS.
17
Its
most recent coalition government
brought in the two centrist parties,
the HSLS and the HSS, two parties
that until that point had consistently
worked in opposition with the
SDP and other parties of the left.
18

This ability to build coalitions with
uieient gioups leaus to one of
two conclusions: either there is a
large amount of common interest
between the various political parties,
which makes coalition building
between seemingly disparate groups
somewhat easier; or that the HDZ is
willing to saciiice some of its paity
platform in order to build a coalition
and maintain power. In reality, it
is more likely that both of these
conclusions are correct.
There are a number of commonly
held policy preferences in Croatia,
particularly the policy of reform
tied to EU accession.
19
This makes
coalition building easier because
smaller parties can jump on board
with this overarching policy. At
the same time, shrewd political
maneuvering cannot be discounted.
Despite the fact that the HDZ controls
66 of the 77 seats necessary to form
a majority government, it has handed
o thiee vice piemiei positions to
the small parties that make up its
coalition, namely the HSLS, HSS and
SDSS.
20
Together, these three parties
control less than ten percent of
the vote in the parliament; yet the
leaders of the HDZ have placed them
in positions of heavy inluence The
reason this is such a smart move for
the HDZ is because it robs possible
coalition partners from the SDP.
The rivalry between the SDP and
the HDZ is very strong in Croatia,
and has its roots in the largely
undemocratic 1990s and the power
wielded by the HDZ during that time.
In 2000, amid widespread discontent
with the system, the SDP won the
most seats in the legislative election
with seats the iist time a paity
other than the HDZ had been the
largest party in parliament.
21
The
SDP, in coalition with the HSLS, the
HNS, the HSS and the IDS became the
iist centeileft coalition to govein
the country. This coalition would last
only three years, however, and in the
election of 2003 the HDZ came back to
power, gaining over 20 seats.
22
After
these legislative battles had taken
place, there was an elite competition
between various candidates from
the SDP and the HDZ over the post of
the President of Croatia, which was
soon to be vacated by Stjepan Mesic,
an independent. Mesic, who had
been Cioatias iist piime ministei
following independence, had won
both the 2002 and 2005 presidential
elections in relatively resounding
fashion.
23
The stalemate was
broken when the SDP candidate, Ivo
Josipovic, was able to pull ahead and
win the 2009 presidential election.
24

This may be due to the fact that
the right was split between who to
support, as the individual running
against Josipovic, Milan Bandic, was a
former member of the HDZ who had
been expelled for choosing to run
against the oficial paity canuiuate
in the iist iounu of the elections
25

It has yet to be determined whether
this presidential victory for the SDP
represents a major shift in political
power, though the trend seems to
point that way.
Looking at elite interrelations,
it might seem that there is a large
amount of competition between
the groups that would be easily
recognized by the people, resulting
in large amounts of voter turnout
and decent elite-mass relations.
However, this does not seem to be
the case. The percentage of eligible
voters who turn out for elections has
been on a negative trend since 2000;
in the 2009 presidential election,
voter turnout was only 44% in the
iist iounu anu in the seconu
iounu iuno
26
This trend could
be due to a number of factors. One
could be that the people see very
little uieience between the uieient
parties because of their united
platform of EU accession, something
that is becoming more and more
unpopular in Croatia.
27
This could
ueinitely be a ieason why only
of Croatians in a recent poll said they
were happy with the direction of
their government, which represents
a very high amount of voter
frustration.
28
Another explanation
could be a growth in general anger
with political parties and the
government in general, which could
lead to a growth in apathy and a loss
of voter participation. This would
be supported by a recent poll that
saw only 22% of respondents claim
to trust their government.
29
This
type of anger could be caused by the
policy preferences and decisions, or
lack thereof, that have come down in
recent years.
As mentioned, the biggest policy
push in Croatia today revolves around
making needed reforms for Croatia
to enter the EU by 2012. This major
policy goal of the current HDZ-lead
coalition government is not opposed
by any signiicant political gioup in
Croatia, and is actively supported
by the SDP.
30
But it is increasingly
unpopular with average Croatians,
who at the moment see all of the
negatives anu few of the beneits
of EU accession. Euroscepticism
is a growing trend across Europe,
so it is not surprising that it would
surface in Croatia. However, it is
surprising that it would crop up so
strongly in the populace, but is not
latched on to by any of the major
political parties. On a number of
Geoff Allen
30
political issues, the positions of the
two largest parliamentary parties
are very close, if not identical.
31
Both
support an expansion of pension
coverage and a general move towards
a welfare state for Croatia. Both
have come out claiming they want
to champion the rights of the poor,
and to provide for those who choose
to start a family. Both parties have
highly detailed, though very similar
plans for dealing with Croatias large
levels of unemployment, which were
measured at 15% in 2009 and is
expected to increase to nearly 20%
this year.
32
The only key uieience
is that the HDZ has governed the
country since 2003, while the
SDP has been in opposition. This
could lead to the SDP coming into
the 2011 election untarnished by
the unpopularity of the current
government, and winning a mandate
to try to implement its own policy
program.
With all of this evidence, the
question becomes, where does
Croatia go from here? What does
the future look like in this country?
First, it is likely that the SDP will
become the dominant party in
Croatian politics following the
2011 parliamentary elections; the
current HDZ lead coalition is just too
unpopular to win enough seats to
reform. Second, it is also likely that
voter turnout in the next election will
continue to follow the current trend
and remain low. It is possible that
foi the iist time this millennium a
political party could gather enough
seats to form a plurality on its own:
the SDP would only need to pick up 21
seats. However, it is more likely that
a coalition between the SDP and the
current coalition members the HSS
and HSLS, or a coalition between the
SDP and the various regional parties
may occur. The policy outputs of any
future government, however, are not
likely to be signiicantly uieient
than the policy outputs of the current
government. The prime goal of an
SDP lead government would still
be EU accession by 2012, and the
reforms necessary for that to happen
on time. Economic and social policies
would likely be somewhat more
liberal but, with the high likelihood
that the SDP will coalition with the
HSLS and HSS, it seems more than
possible that the SDPs moves in this
regard will be tempered by the need
to maintain its alliance.
A study of Croatias political
elites sheds light on a group that is
very homogeneous in a number of
areas; that competes with itself for
electoral seats but has very little
uieience in policy piefeience anu
is relatively out of touch with its
constituent base. Looking at all of
this, the conclusion can be reached
that the Croatian political elite are a
very self aware group that pursues
policies very much in line with its
weltanschauung. The elites of
separate and competing parties often
support the same legislation and
policies, even when they go against
what the people want, which is
shown by the European integration
policy. The high level of homogeneity
in policy making and background
has lead to a growing sense of apathy
among voters, who fail to see any
substantive uieience between theii
major political parties. Despite the
homogeneity of the elites, there is
competition between the SDP and
the HDZ; rather than competition
over policy ideas and platforms, this
competition is instead more of a
popularity contest, where each side
is battling with the other for more
votes. While the SDP is poised to
take control of parliament for the
iist time since in the upcoming
elections, the country will likely not
shift courses, but instead follow the
same general trajectory.
Notes
1
Hrvatski Sabor. (Web: The Croatian Parliament,
2010). April 19, 2010.
2
Carr, Adam. Republic of Croatia. (Web: Adam
Carrs Election Archives, February 2010). 7 April,
2010. Hrvatski Sabor
3
Carr, Republic of Croatia. Government of the
Republic of Croatia. (Web: The Government of the
Republic of Croatia). April 17, 2010.
4
Government Hrvatski Sabor
5
Carr, Republic of Croatia
6
Ibid
7
Ibid
8
Ibid
9
Ibid
10
Hrvatski Sabor
11
Ibid
12
Ibid
13
Ibid
14
Cioatia Pailiament coniims new centei
right coalition under Prime Minister Sanader.
(wieninternational.at, 17 Jan. 2008). April 17,
2010.
15
Government
16
Carr, Republic of Croatia
17
Crootio Porlioment Conirms
18
Government
19
Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Report:
Croatia. ( Web: April 2010) 15 April, 2010.
20
Country Report: Croatia
21
Carr, Republic of Croatia
22
Ibid
23
Ibid
24
BBC.com, Social Democrat Ivo Josipovic elected
Croatia president (Web: 11 Jan. 2010). April 17,
2010.
25
BBC.com
26
Carr, Republic of Croatia
27
Country Report: Croatia
28
Ibid
29
Ibid
30
The Social Democratic Party of Croatia. Web.
April 13, 2010. Translated through google.com.
31
The Croatian Democratic Union. Web. April 13,
2010.Translated through google.com. The Social
Democratic Part of Croatia
32
Country Report: Croatia
TROIKA
31
Passions and Habits Intertwined
Erica Haggerty
Nikolai Gogols short story
The Old World Landowners is
set in a sphere of monotonous
routine, pastoral tranquility, and a
bizarrely stagnant mood. Producing
and pickling food, eating, resting,
discussing eating, hosting guests,
eating, sleeping, and eating again
aie what seem to ueine the bulk
of the lives of the two protagonists,
Pulkheria and Afanasy. Their daily
interactions appear to be painfully
delineated by habit. However,
Gogol hints that their lives contain
something more. Upon stating, The
life of their modest owners is quiet,
so quiet that for a moment you forget
yourself and think that the passions,
desires, and restlessness produced
by the evil spirit who troubles the
world does not exist at all, and that
you saw them only in a splendid,
shining dream,
1
he suggests that
one thinks that passions, desires,
and recklessness are nonexistent.
Passions are present within the
characters, coexisting within their
daily routines. Through his portrayal
of the roles passions and habits
play in Pulkheria and Afanasys
lives, Gogol suggests that the two
conlicting teims not only go hanu
in-hand, but they are also contingent
upon one another.
Whether it is managing the
household, hosting her guests, or
petting her cat, Pulkherias habbits
become a source of passion within
her life. Her character is essentially
marked by habit; she is unfeeling,
mature, and constant. Pulkheria
Ivanovna was rather serious, she
hardly ever laughed.
2
Yet she is not
as dry and lifeless as the fruits she
prepares; she possesses passion,
pursuing the possibility of happiness
and achieving what she likes.
Through her habits she becomes
passionately happy: happy with the
way that she manages the household,
happy to serve her guests to the
point of lethargy, and happy with
what is familiar to her. The following
passage manifests the extreme
passion and fervor she achieves
through her role as a hostess:
Generally, Pulkheria Ivanova
was in exceptionally good spirits
whenever they had guests. A kindly
old woman! She belonged entirely to
her guests.
3
While Gogol originally
refers to passions as created by an
evil spirit who troubles the world
4

Pulkherias habits seem to produce
good spirits within her and make
her unconditionally generous rather
than recklessly harmful as the term
evil suggests. An instance where
one can see how her habits have
caused her to adopt a particular
passion or liking is through her
relations with her cat. It cannot be
said that Pulkheria Ivanovna loved
her all that much, she was simply
attached to her, being used to seeing
her all the time.
5
Her passion for the
cat is contingent upon the comforting
familiarity habit produces. Pulkheria
is thus not a hollow iguie executing
her required daily habits; rather
habits have become the source of her
joys anu aections
On the other hand, her husband
Afanasy is not induced to passion
through habit. Instead there exists
within him passions that fuel his
quiet and solitary life, that give
reason behind the habits he adopts.
His character is marked by an
inclination toward passion. Unlike
his wife, he is described as childish
and infantile as in the passage, On
the contrary, in questioning you, he
showed great curiosity and concern
for the circumstances of your own
life, its successes and failures, which
always interest all kindly old men,
though it somewhat resembled
the curiosity of a child.
6
With his
constant joking and eagerness to
learn about the larger world, he
seems to be young at heart. Yet
contrary to Gogols statement
that passions induce recklessness
and trouble through an evil
spirit, Alfanasy does not go rashly
gallivanting on romantic adventures.
He adopts his habits as a way to feed
his youthful passions. By conversing
with guests, he is able to satisfy his
curiosity for a world outside of his
household; by habitually consuming
foou he satisies his love foi eating
and by poking fun and interacting
with Pulkheria, he expresses his
inner passions for her. His passion
for her shines through his joking,
seen in the passage, But Afanasy
Ivanovich, pleased at having poked
fun at Pulkheria Ivanovna, would
smile, sitting on his chair.
7
Habits for
him are thus powerful mechanisms
of desire.
Passions and habits, though
contiauictoiy in theii ueinitions
function together in particular ways
within the characters. Yet if this is so,
one cannot help but question why
the two characters depart from their
peaceful world in such a strange
fashion. On one hand, one could argue
that Gogol suggests that passions
have a way of causing trouble, that
because of an evil spirit, Pulkheria
and Afanasy, as creatures of habit, are
led to their deathbeds. However, one
could also argue that passions and
habits are contingent on one another.
In the case of Pulkherias death, it
is the shattering of habit due to the
cats failure to show the traditional
gratitude of a guest that Pulkheria
is left with passion alone. Without
the cat there to pet and without that
grounding habit of tradition to bring
hei giatiication she becomes heavy
with an uncontrollable sadness, as
seen in the text In vain did Afanasy
Ivanovich joke anu tiy to inu out
why she was suddenly so sorrowful.
8

In Alfanasys case, Pulkherias death
leaves him solely with habit; his
passion dies along with her. He takes
part in his regular habits of eating
and inviting guests over, yet without
passion, he sat insensibly, insensibly
holding his spoon (152). It is when
passions and habits stand alone that
they become lethal.
Through the lives and deaths
of the couple, Gogol refutes that
within humans resides a tendency
toward passions and habits. It is by
maintaining a ine balance between
the two, whether it is controlling the
evil spirit within him with habit or
partaking in habit that one enjoys,
that one achieves tranquility.
Notes
1
Gogol, Nikolai. The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol.
Trans. Pevear/Volokhonsky. (Vintage-Random
House, 1999.) pg, 132
2
Gogol, The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol pg. 135
3
Ibid pg. 144
4
Ibid pg. 132
5
Ibid pg. 145
6
Ibid pg. 135
7
Ibid pg. 142
8
Ibid pg. 147
32
Home
Natalie Budesa
Exhausted, I laid down my
rucksack at the edge of the kitchen
table. Already I could see the seams I
had patched up last week beginning
to tear, thinly stretching across a new
gap, failing to contain the books that
were stacked inside.
Mama had left some stew on the
counter, meaning she was going to be
at work all night again. I watched the
sun inch toward the horizon through
the dirty window. The intense light
illuminated the dirt till I didnt see
it anymore - only a blinding beam
shining down on me, exposing the
contour of my smooth cheekbones,
the crack on the table, the mouse in
the coinei the witheiing lowei in
the garden.
Benny still hadnt come home
so I pulled my hat over my ears and
ventured outside. You never had
to go far before you ran into some
straggler on the streets, a tiny woman
with fragile wrinkles powdered
throughout her face, bent low over
her groceries, or a kid kicking up
pebbles as he looked for a playmate.
I had barely walked past our home
when Ivan rushed across my path,
shouting at a girl sitting on a porch.
Ivan always squinted up at me as
if judging whether I was someone
worth talking to. I imagined he
woulu become a ilthy gamblei when
he grew up.
Ivan, have you seen Benny? I
called.
He squinted at me, his eyes
becoming beady holes in his face.
I dunno, he mumbled.
Ivan! Tell me now or Ill tell
your mother about the turtle, I said
as menacingly as I could. It must
have worked, because after kicking
the ground once more, he pointed
further down the road.
The wind rushed behind my feet,
carrying me uncomfortably faster
than I meant to go, till my breath
came out in panickeu hus I lookeu
around, not yet knowing what to
panic about. Just past Zorkas house,
I could hear kids shouting. When
Benny came into view, I sighed with
relief, but then saw another boy
approaching, his footsteps steady
and tense. I knew this walk. I also
recognized the way Benny threw
back his shoulders, straightening his
whole body into a hard mass that
appeared impenetrable. The other
boy iesponueu by swinging his ists
back and forth, mounting strength
from his core into his knuckles. Like
animals Benny was in a ight again
Just when he rushed at the other boy,
I screamed.
Benny!
The boys stopped and looked
at me. Blood dripped from Bennys
nose Angei laieu in his eyes anu
I could tell by his frown he wasnt
ready to go home yet. The other boy
used Bennys temporary distraction
to punch him hard in the stomach.
Spinning aiounu Benny lung his
whole body at the other boy and
slammed him to the ground.
Benny! Benny! I never knew
what else to scream. Benny! My
voice had become hysterical, until
I didnt even recognize the boy
standing beside me through my tear-
stained eyes.
Benny!
Alright! he shouted back, right
next to me. The anger had not left
his face. I quickly wiped my eyes
and looked for the other boy. Slightly
stooped over his stomach, his eyes
watched us with pent up savagery
and when I turned away, I could feel
his eyes on my back.
He took dads pension, Benny
mumbled.
What? I asked.
When dad was drunk last week
and we had to carry him home... his
pockets were empty. They pick his
pockets now, you know.
Benny and I continued in silence.
Although Benny was only fourteen
he was approaching six feet tall, his
muscles beginning to take shape
around his shoulders. He was going
to be the same height as dad, but
sturdier and with a harder look about
him. Most smiles never reached his
eyes, and when I saw this, it made
my insides drop a little. I felt secure
standing next to his tall form, but at
the same time, I kept a little distance
between us. When we got home,
the only souls in the household,
Benny headed straight for his room.
American rock music wafted through
the hall to my room, where I lay,
attempting to inish my homewoik
My home for twenty-three years was
in Pritina, Kosovo, but the warmth
of the word home was as foreign to
me as the lyrics to Pink Floyd.
I always wondered if my brothers
taste foi angei anu ighting spiung
from his personality or if our life had
shaped him that way. His body was
made for anger, his hulking muscles
always bracing for the next blow.
Though I wanted to know what went
on in his head, I didnt know how
to inu the woius to ask 0ne colu
winter night, I was rereading the
ending of Anna Karenina, waiting
foi my biothei to inish Ivanhoe so
I coulu inally ieau it Spiawleu out
on the sofa, I watched as my brother
inally lickeu thiough the last page
I excitedly waited for him to hand it
over, but he simply lay there, staring
at the ceiling Ny eyes lickeu to the
ceiling, and after realizing there was
nothing of importance there, I gently
pulled the book from my brothers
stomach into my lap. I glanced at the
clock. It was nearly midnight. When
my eyes began to itch and I got up to
go to bed, Benny was still staring at
the ceiling. Maybe he was angry at the
world, for the way nothing seemed
to last; Im not sure what my brother
was truly angry about, or worse, who
he could rightfully blame.
The ights my biothei ciaveu the
most were with my dad. I was most
at a loss during these times. I could
not cry to my mom as I watched their
brawny skin grapple in the sickly light
of the kitchen. At times, circling each
33
other like prey, at others shooting
at each others bulk with wrenching
force, I would feel my own weakness
seep into the looi becoming a ueau
weight that pinned me to the ground,
in my own helplessness. My brother
would reach for my dads neck, then
for a knife.
At these times, I learned to
transfer the frantic beating of my
heart to my legs. I would run, run
hard, to our neighbor. A very decent,
middle-aged couple lived next door. I
sometimes watched them, imagining
that if they ever had kids, those kids
would be very lucky. Anyway, I would
run to Boris, the kind husband, and
would ask for his help. I always tried
to be polite even when I imagined my
biothei anu uau ighting with moie
intensity every passing moment.
In time, Boris became used to my
gentle then hardened pounding on
the door, and knew to rush over and
pull my brother and father apart. Not
once did he complain, but always
with a surety in his whole body
become a calm wall in the midst of
the ight The woius thank you
never seemed enough. Sometimes
he caught me watching him and his
wife from my bedroom window, and
he would smile and wave. In a way,
he was my hero.
One time I woke up to my dad
yelling outside. I ran out and he was
banging on Boris door, thinking it
was his own home. Rubbing sleep
from my eyes, I tiptoed across
the broken grass, teetering in the
darkness.
Dad! Thats not our house, I
called. I put my hand on his shoulder,
and he turned to me, his breath rank
and warm.
Tell them... I need to go inside!
he mutteieu lailing his aims anu
continuing to bang on the door. I
reached for his arms, but he balked
at my steady grip and spun away.
I need..! I need...! he shouted
into the night. I was so tired. I hoped
he had not awakened Boris, and that
he was sleeping peacefully with his
wife, who perhaps would someday
have a bulge at her belly, and Boris
would then sleep with his cool palm
on her belly. My brother came out
TROIKA
and stared at our blabbering father.
Eventually he calmed into a stupor
and lay against the stone fence. We
dragged him inside, but couldnt
inu the stiength to make it to his
bedroom. His body had become dead
weight that iesisteu oui eoits Bis
mouth hung open, taking in deep
gulps of air while we panted. Mom
wasnt home; she never really was.
We made it as far as the
bathroom. Benny and I stared
at the remaining distance to the
bedroom in contempt, our dads
snores rending through the humid
night air, unaware of our struggle.
The bathroom stood welcomingly
to our right. We wondered if this
should be a strange sight, watching
our dad sleep peacefully curled in
the bathtub. I lay a blanket over
him and Benny smiled approvingly.
Though he looked peaceful sprawled
in the tub, and his wrinkles seemed
to deepen and emphasize how much
more of life he had seen than me, I
felt sorry for my dad.
Every couple of years we would
go to the Adriatic coast on a family
vacation and stay at a condo there. It
was the highlight of the year. Except
my dad had to be sober for it. We
couldnt leave him at home alone
drunk who knew what would
happen to him and we certainly
didnt want to drag him along when
he was in one of his stupors.
I imagined myself running along
the salty beach, sea spray moistening
my skin, my mother resting her sore
feet in the lush, warm sand. My
brother would peer out into the sea,
squinting at the horizon, the corner
of his mouth slightly upturning as
the bieeze iufleu his haii
The day before the trip, my
brother was hanging with his friend
Tomislav, on our small apartment
patio. I secretly liked the way
Tomislavs mouth curled into a smirk
when he talked, the sturdy build of
his arms, the rough calluses on his
palms, the way he could sit with my
brother and just listen to the silence,
at ease. They were drinking beer,
uelating fuithei into theii chaiis
with each cool sip, letting the warm
summer heat pour into their seams.
Though we were still within our
home, in our minds we were already
on the sunny beaches of the Adriatic,
letting oui woiiies loat away
When my dad stumbled in, I felt
all my carefree visions slip away,
like miniscule grains of sand held
together for one last moment before
being yanked away into the relentless
sea. In one moment, I knew we were
no longer going on the trip we had
anticipated for a whole year. My
dad was drunk. I looked to Benny,
and saw he was already watching
me; his eyes, which were formerly
burning with the relief of a vacation,
now burning with fury. Tomislav did
not understand, and merely took
another sip of his beer as my dad
tripped onto the patio. I became not
only scared of Benny and his anger,
but that Tomislav may see the sick
lifestyle we leu the pathetic iguie
that was our father.
Our dad unceremoniously strode
to the fiont of the patio ishing in the
cooler for a cold beer, all the while
mumbling under his breath. Benny
tightened his hand around his own
drink, till I thought the glass would
shatter within his grip.
Hello, Tomislav broke in,
unaware of the change in mood.
As if this was the cue Benny was
waiting for, he suddenly stood up
and slammed the cooler shut while
my dad struggled to open his bottle.
He smelled horrible in the summer
heat, and it made me long for the
fresh ocean breeze even more. I
remembered the suitcase in my
room, and frowned at the thought
of unpacking all my summer dresses
that night.
Benny stared hard at dad,
who had moved to the patio fence,
shouting at no one in particular. I
shufleu closei to Tomislav scaieu of
my brothers mood swing.
You call this hot? my dad
shouted, seemingly at a few kids
wandering in the distance.
When I was in the war we had
to - he mumbled, but he didnt get
to inish
Benny grabbed the back of dads
shirt and pulled him away from the
fence. My dad stumbled and beer
sloshed out of his bottle onto both of
their bodies. Benny started punching
him so violently that I could only
stand dumbfounded, as if patiently
waiting for him to stop. But his arm
continued to shoot up and then
down so forcefully, without losing
34
momentum, that my heart began to
pound in my chest with growing fear.
Bloou began to low fiom my uaus
face.
Tomislav, scrambling to
unueistanu the situation at iist
tried to calm Benny with words.
When that didnt work, he tried to
push Benny away.
I thought to myself, this is it, this
is the moment when an outsider
enters our home and realizes it was
a mistake. We are not normal and
we cannot be ixeu Tomislav woulu
never like me, and from now on he
would be too disgusted and ashamed
of me that he could never look at
me the way Id always dreamed he
would.
With iim hanus Tomislav pulleu
Benny from my father. A few teeth lay
in a puddle of blood on the ground.
Tomislav said a few calming words
to my brother and I loved him even
more for that, though I knew I had
already lost any chance with him.
I helped my smelly, bleeding dad
up and led him to the bedroom. I
cleaned him and lay him down in bed
like a child, all the while saying good-
bye to my long-awaited vacation, my
secret crush, my own childhood.
When I went to bed that night, I
tucked myself in.
Assimilation
Nika Allahverdi
Natalie Budesa
Ive got two feet in two separate buckets,
Each bucket is red, white and blue.
The seconu in the iist sees a boiling ieu
The iist in the seconu an inuieient blue
And with my feet in these two buckets,
I cant feel a thing,
Except perhaps a numbing chatter
And a disconnected sting.
Hut In Countryside, Cristian Macavei
35
Chekhov in California
Maya Garcia
A rhythmic autumn rain was
falling outside, bringing the grey of
the clouds to the land below. Liliya
Petrovna watched in silence from
her window, listening intently to
the soft cadence that brought to her
mind the dull patterns of daily life:
droning on and on in a sequence that
hardly altered, where any change
was just a beat in a larger rhythm
encompassing the iist

Hey, Lily, which top should I
wear with my new skirt?
Oh, umthe pink one. Yeah.
Thanks! That means I can wear
my pink sandals too, yes! Its going
to be such a lovely day. Still sunny in
October! God, I love California.
The vision broken, Liliya
Petrovna turned her eyes from the
window and back down to the work
at her desk. She had been preparing
for an examination in classical myth
for some weeks, and the little stack of
hand-written cards was already well
worn. Her mind soon wandered from
the unexciting task of memorization:
a young mans slim tall iguie
appeared again and again amongst
the ancient lists like a stray line of
ink bleeding through the pages. She
shook her head to clear it of this
image and, sighing, set the cards
down to rest again up the cluttered
desk. Her desk was too much a
display of the state of her mind, its
disarray a hindrance to studies. She
decided she would be better served
by a walk out-of-doors.

Where are you going?
Just outside for a little bit. For
some fresh air, I dunno.
OK, well Im leaving soon for
class so I guess Ill see you later,
then.
OK, see you.

She had not come six steps from
the gate when she saw the young
man coming up the path. Though she
knew he walked this way at this time,
she was still caught oguaiu by the
familiar measured gait as it carried
its bearer towards her. She slowed in
hei step anu lickeu hei gaze to the
horizon, but continued forward with
his pale, clean-cut face in her sights
periphery. Her heart thumped two
or three loud, erratic beats for every
one of his long, deliberate strides
that fell noiselessly on the ground.
She gathered her nerve with a sharp
breath and formed her lips into a
greeting. The sound of it lagged a
little, held back by the intimidation
of the handsome, serious face that
now loomed before her.

Hi!
Hello.
Uh, how have you been doing?
OK, thanks. You?
Pretty well. I have a midterm
tomorrow, but I think Im ready for
it.
Which class?
Classics.
Ah.

The conversation between the
young man and young woman quickly
fell into a pattern as predictable
and innocuous as rainfall. Beneath
the tiiles that uiippeu fiom Liliya
Petrovnas mouth were passionate
declarations and desperate pleas she
longed to make to the young man,
but in this drizzle they were simply
drowned. Were her youthful feelings
really so fragile that such a pattering
of light talk could silence them? But
perhaps it was not the drizzle of
tiiles that uiowneu the unspoken
words, but the deep and frigid ocean
in the young mans dark blue eyes.

She is worrying the hem of her
t-shirt with increasing rapidity,
preparing for the conversation
to reach its peak. Her gaze blinks
nervously away from his eyes and
down to his tweed knit shoulder. His
layered clothing is as incongruous on
this bright, warm day as her brooding
Russian Realist fantasies.

Are you, uh, doing anything
Friday night? The fabric of her t-shirt
warms against her shaking thumb.
Because Im thinking of going to the
Film Archive; theyre screening The
Lady with a Dog and I thought you
might like to go too. The silence that
follows lets Lily listen to the rushing
blood in her ears.

When he inally speaks his sobei
expression has not altered.Hm. Ill
have to think about it.

Lilys ingeis inu a snag in the
seam of the hem and go suddenly
still. Oh! OK. Well, I guess I should
be going. Bye.

Bye.

She forces herself not to look
back as she continues down the path
he continues up. She tries to drown
out the sound of the gate opening,
then closing behind him with her
thoughts.
As Liliya Petrovnas steps carried
her away from the young man, her
thoughts ran the reverse, closing
in upon him to recall each detail of
their recent conversation. His words
were well mannered enough, his
aspect quite polite, even pleasant.
What lacked in his speech was any
perceptible amount of warmth. It
confounded her to think that not a
single degree of the great warmth
that permeated her being could seep
into his. Had he somehow wrapped
himself in a case, sealed beneath a
cold membrane that caused every
soft tenuiil of hei waim aections
that sought to caress it to fall away,
frostbitten?

Lily smiles bitterly.

Whatever the cause, it was likely
for the best that Liliya Petrovnas
love was not returned. What she
desired, she desired too much to
have it would consume and destroy
her. Better to let energetic young
aections faue away anu welcome
the cool staidness of maturity.

Lily stops in her tracks, too
disturbed by this last thought to
continue. When Chekhov gets too
bleak, she thinks, he often stops to
make some beautiful remark about
the natural setting. You get a nice
paragraph to digest whatever bitter
ielection the main chaiactei makes
She surveys the natural setting
around her.

The sparse early-afternoon
tiafic maue its way along a taiieu
path that stretched to the horizon, a
multicolored river moving along by
spurts, its shores hard, grey stone.
Liliya Petrovna stood upon this shore,
staring hard at the parking garage
on the far side, willing it to become
a foiest a copse oi even a ielu of
wheat, until her mind began to ache
and she turned back for home.
36
Maya Garcia
Back Cover Photography | Top: Castle of Vlad Tepes (Dracula), Cristian Macavei. Bottom: Jan Palach Memorial, Katarina White
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