This article examines how Russian speakers in Ireland delimit and describe (their/the) Russian language in relation to representations of standard Russian. It is based on analysis of discussions conducted between speakers of Russian living in Ireland, facilitated by the Our Languages (2008-2011) research project, investigating multilingualism and…

Language education and schooling are important topics in post-conflict contexts. This study explores the existing situation of mother tongue education in the de facto Abkhazia. The study had the following research questions: (1) What was the ethnic composition of Abkhazia during the Soviet Union, and how Russian occupation changed it? (2) How well…

Based on oral and written testimony of pupils and teachers, this essay examines the lived educational experience of the school-age cohort of children in Stalin's Russia from 1931 to 1945. The state alone determined the structure and curricula of the nation's schools. However, Soviet youngsters, their parents, and teachers responded to the center's…

The article analyzes the constituent steps and measures of the Soviet campaign to eradicate illiteracy among adults in the 1920s-30s. A comparison of educational and ideological aspects of this campaign demonstrates how closely they were interrelated and how they facilitated the creation of new patterns of cultural behavior. The author shows that…

Through the example of the establishment, functioning, and closing of bilingual schools during the Soviet occupation of Hungary, this paper aims to introduce this segment of public education in Central-Eastern Europe. In the period between 1945 and 1989, the learning of Russian as a compulsory subject was introduced, teaching other languages was…

This paper explores the identity and the social/political behaviour of Russians in post-Soviet Central Asia through a comparison with the Baltic countries via a "hot and cold ethnicity" paradigm. Central Asian Russians are more likely, ceteris paribus, to be found at the "cold" end of the spectrum of "ethnic…

This article concerns educational and livelihood trajectories of the Kazakh minority in western Mongolia. It outlines the trajectories of individuals over four generations of a Kazakh family and contextualizes these within social, political, and economic context. It describes the importance of family networks and considers the concept of social…

Since the post-Soviet context is not particularly well known to the majority of readers, the author uses this introduction to provide a general background against which developments in particular post-Soviet countries can be better understood. The author begins by placing these developments in the sociohistoric context of language policies of the…

Examines certain major determinants of ethnic identity change in the Soviet Union. (PMP)

The focus of the present paper is on the relationship between national identities and foreign-language education policies and practices. The paper examines this relationship through a juxtaposition of three sociohistoric contexts in which sociopolitical events led to major changes in foreign-language education: post-World War I United States,…

This syllabus is an outline of a one semester course in Imperial Russia designed to emphasize the relationship between Russia's past and her present. Course content begins with the founding of the first Russian state and continues to the fall of the Romanovs in 1917. In addition, some topics are suggested for investigation of Russian history in…