Parallel Session 6.

Chair: Eszter Őze

–

Pierluigi Allotti

The Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica and the Americanization of Italian political science (1971–1991)

Giovanni Sartori (1924–2017), the ‘father’ of modern Italian Political Science, founded the journal Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica (RISP) in Florence in 1971. Sartori explained to the readers that the name of the new journal was not a very original one, being similar to that of two old and illustrious journals: the American Political Science Review (which dates back to 1906), and the Revue Française de Science Politique. However, Sartori assured that RISP would be very different from both existing journals in terms of content and methodology This is because the American political science was in his opinion "extremely technical", while the French political science was "too colorful and syncretistic". RISP, instead, would be placed in an intermediate position: "less technical than the North American model, and more rigorous than the French one". Nevertheless, in 1974 the eminent political philosopher Norberto Bobbio criticized the path taken by the journal and the discipline itself, pointing out that the first issue of RISP that year, dedicated to the theme of collective decisions, was too difficult to read and understand, because it was too technical. Sartori replied by saying that his "emphasis on the technical aspect of the discipline [was] dictated by [...] well-founded concerns (in a context such as Italy) of legitimacy and seriousness". Two years later, in 1976, Sartori left Florence and moved to the United States to teach at Stanford University, and, from 1979, at Columbia University. In this paper, I will show the process of Americanization of Italian political science by looking at articles published in RISP from 1971 to 1991. Specifically, I will consider how, and to what extent, the American “technical” model – the hegemonical one – became the mainstream model in Italy, at that time still a peripheral country in the field of political science. I will focus on the first twenty years of the journal as in 1991 the Cold War ended, Sartori was preparing to return to Italy from United States, and the first issue of RISP that year was devoted to take stock of the discipline of political science in Italy between "tradition and reality”

–

Halyna Hleba

The influence of the foreign banned professional photographic periodicals on late Soviet Ukrainian photography

Report on the situation with regard to professional photographic periodicals in Ukraine in the second half of the 20th century, consumption of smuggled foreign professional literature banned by the Soviet authorities as an alternative source of information, and the influence of foreign press on the development of diversity of photographic styles in 1970s–1980s Soviet Ukraine. During the years 1922–1991, Ukraine was part of and under the influence of the domestic and foreign cultural policies of the Soviet Union with its system of ideological control and propaganda pressure. Much of the progressive professional periodicals that were created in the Soviet Union in the 1920s became a mouthpiece for propaganda and ideological art forms and statements after World War II. The professional photography press was based in Moscow, where the only possible ideological product for the Soviet satellite states was formed. However, access to alternative Western periodicals, press, and literature was restricted by the Iron Curtain. As a result, the Ukrainian Soviet photographic and cultural community was simultaneously isolated from external trends in art, had ideological prejudices from within, and was close to the borders of European countries from which the press and art literature was smuggled into Soviet Ukraine. In particular, members of the Kharkiv School of Photography point to photographic magazines from the countries of the socialist camp – Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia – as their sources for stylistic and thematic references. Photographers in Kyiv focused on European documentary photography. Photographers in Lviv mainly concentrated on Latvian and Spanish photography, the stylistic innovations of which were peeked in Polish photo magazines.

–

Ekaterina Vasileva

Press as a bridge between "Orientals“: The role of Islam in Soviet diplomacy

My research paper focuses on the magazine called “The Muslims in the Soviet East”, which was published by the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan in various foreign languages (I concentrate on the Arabic version) since 1969. It was a part of Soviet diplomatic attempts to reach Arab Muslim audiences abroad, informing them about the life of Soviet Muslims. Its originality was rooted in the fact that it had no direct connection to the Communist Party of Uzbekistan or to the Soviet Central Government. It was published by the organisation of Central Asian Muslims and its target audience were Arab Muslims, which makes this journal an interesting case of communication between a Soviet “periphery” (Central Asia) and one of the centres of the so-called “Third World” (Arab region). The periodical presents a curious case of a merger between Muslim and Soviet imagery. On one hand, it concentrates on the explicitly Muslim issues in the region of the Central Asia: the local “madrasa” schools or fatwas issued by Central Asian imams. On the other hand, the Soviets approached Islam as a cultural diplomacy tool for attracting foreign audiences simultaneously creating a positive image of a progressive Soviet state in the eyes of Muslim readership with imagery of space and technological advancement. Such media contain valuable information on mutual perceptions of “imagined worlds” and might present a different perspective on the well-known issues of Islam and Muslim (im)migrants representation in the media and on the relations between the progressive and Islamic picture of the “imagined world”.