Europe
http://hdl.handle.net/1803/72
2024-03-29T12:23:55ZConstituencies of Political Authoritarianism: Struggle, Survival, and Separatism in the Donets Coal Basin (1989-2014)
http://hdl.handle.net/1803/16711
Constituencies of Political Authoritarianism: Struggle, Survival, and Separatism in the Donets Coal Basin (1989-2014)
Dominic Cruz Bastillos
Since the start of the War in the Donbas in 2014, the miners of the Donetsk Coal Basin have suffered immensely due to economic and political destabilization, mine flooding, mine closures, intermittent shelling, mounting wage arrears, outdated technology, and generally hazardous conditions. Yet this struggle for survival is not a recent or unfamiliar phenomenon. The Donbas colliers have been fighting their own impending redundancy for decades. Due to massive subsidies, latent privatization, bloated labor forces, and general unprofitability, the Donbas mines have been treated as a barrier to progress and a siphon for state funds in post-independence Ukraine, a relic of the old Soviet system that refuses to acquiesce to the economic reform programs of an increasingly Europe-oriented Ukrainian nation-state. But even more than a story of survival, the tragedy of the Donbas coal miners is a story of the failure of collective action and their willing subsumption into authoritarian structures on the heels of repression. If the Donbas coal miners were the prototypical heroes of Soviet labor in 1989, then today, in 2021, they are scattered, divided, and cowed by the yoke of the same pro-Russian separatist elements whom they either supported or failed to resist in 2014.
This thesis traces the evolution of the Donbas colliers as collective actors, analyzing their transformation from independent grassroots organizers to a constituency of authoritarianism. The miners’ drastic economic circumstances presaged and hastened the emergence of exploitative, yet symbiotic political relationships with authoritarians who professed support for the coal industry. In the absence of meaningful political alternatives, the Donbas miners have been one of the most important constituencies that has supported authoritarianism and allowed separatism to establish a foothold in Ukraine. This support has been built on the decades-long desire to stave off economic redundancy and revive the Donbas coal mining industry.
This thesis includes an attached avtoreferat in Russian. Данная дипломная работа включает автореферат на русском языке.
An abbreviated version of this honors thesis was written and submitted entirely in Russian to the Department of German, Russian, and East European Studies. Both honors theses received highest honors. The honors thesis in History also received the Dewey Grantham Award for the best honors thesis in the Department of History.
2021-05-03T00:00:00ZUsing the Living as Proxies in the Politics of the Dead: U.S. Grave Exhumation in the Soviet Zone of Germany, 1945-1953
http://hdl.handle.net/1803/16164
Using the Living as Proxies in the Politics of the Dead: U.S. Grave Exhumation in the Soviet Zone of Germany, 1945-1953
Olson, Jacquelyn G.
History Department Honors Thesis
2020-04-20T00:00:00ZThe Path to War: Internal Motivation and Societal Influences in the First Crusade, 1095-1099
http://hdl.handle.net/1803/9479
The Path to War: Internal Motivation and Societal Influences in the First Crusade, 1095-1099
Morehead, Victoria
On the 27th of November 1095, a large crowd watched and listened to the head of their Church. Prior to this moment, hundreds of Frankish nobles and ecclesiastical officials had gathered at the Council of Clermont in Auvergne, located in modern-day southern France. The ecumenical council was coming to a close after several days, and the crowd was waiting to hear a sermon from the pope who had called them together. When Pope Urban II addressed his audience, his sermon on maintaining peace as good “shepherds” swiftly turned into a speech on the threat of a great oppressive enemy. Far from their homes in Europe, the Muslim Seljuk
Turks had invaded and captured territory from the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern vestiges of Christianity. With the city of Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land at peril, the duty to defend the holy Christian domains rested on this crowd’s shoulders. The audience had different reactions to the speech. Some were moved to tears, others trembled at the thought of the journey, and the rest discussed the words of the pope amongst themselves. Despite their doubts and concern, however, the audience heeded the message. Starting from the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban’s call to arms would soon spread across Europe and incite thousands of clergy, nobles, and peasants to embark on what would become the First Crusade (1095-1099).
HIST 4981, Senior Honors Research Seminar, Arleen Tuchman
2019-04-24T00:00:00ZWarring Worldviews on the Field of Honor in late Medieval Spain
http://hdl.handle.net/1803/9476
Warring Worldviews on the Field of Honor in late Medieval Spain
Spence, Frank
Around the start of the fifteenth century, Gutierre Díez de Games, standard bearer of the Castilian knight Don Pero Niño, wrote in his biographical chronicle of Niño about “How our Lord Jesus Christ desired for victors in battle to be honored, and he himself honored them with the palm [of victory] that he blessed.” Díez de Games referenced biblical warriors like Joshua and David fighting for the faith as well as notables of the more recent past like Charlemagne and Charles Martel as examples for contemporary knights. He further stated that “knights should place great value in fame and the honor of victory when the son of God gave such honor to the[se] victors” Though Díez de Games presented a clearly biased approach to reading the Bible, a more fervent religious justification of the warlike lifestyle of knights can scarcely be imagined. Díez de Games claimed God’s blessing of knightly activities. Our author was no Pope Urban II declaring an opportunity for warriors to remit their sins by going on crusade against enemies of the faith. Instead, while he emphasized the value of fighting against enemies of the faith, in the same breath he exalted fighting “for the honor of [one’s] king and kingdom,” a far more secular objective.
HIST 4981, Senior Honors Research Seminar, Arleen Tuchman
2019-04-24T00:00:00Z