著者
志摩 園子
出版者
The Japanese Association for Russian and East European Studies
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2009, no.38, pp.30-46, 2009 (Released:2011-10-14)
参考文献数
20

The purpose of this paper is to examine why Latvia was affected deeply by the financial crisis among EU and other countries. In order to shed light on the situation before and after the financial crisis in 2008, we should at first point out the background factors. The wide-scale demonstration against the economic policy of the last Government in January, 2009 is still fresh in our minds. As a result of the demonstration, Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis was forced to resign and in last March, a young politician, Valdis Dombrovskis from Jaunas Laiks came on stage as the Prime Minister. As the cause of steep economic rise, Minister of Finance Einars Repše explained the 18% sharp decrease of GDP in 2009 resulting from the end of the bubble economy in Latvia. According to the survey by the European Commission, conducted in autumn, 2009, 97% responded that it was very bad or rather bad on the economic situation. The survey also shows that 88% of respondents distrust the Government. The author analyzes the background factors from the following three. First, there are still all kinds of legacy from past Soviet times. It is true that wide-scale social transformations had occurred since 1991, but we have to take into consideration Latvia’s historical background with Soviet times. Second, she had to make efforts to speed up to convert to a market economy and to develop it. It was because Latvia wanted to keep up with the current tendencies in Eastern Europe so as to enter EU membership. She was afraid of being left behind from the neighboring countries, like other Baltic countries or the Central European countries. Third, the Government gave priority to her external policy over her domestic policy after Latvia’s re-independence from Soviet Union in 1991. As a result, she could not sufficiently respond to a variety of demands and expectations of the people. She had to fulfill criteria for entering EU at first and at the same time the Government did not have the leeway to focus on internal issues. In particular, we must never forget the influence on the domestic issues at the time of becoming a member of EU and NATO are involved. To be sure, Latvia tended to depart from the economic tie away from her dependence on Russia, although they still have to rely heavily on Russia for energy. On the other hand, she accepted foreign investments from Scandinavian and other countries in a positive manner. After Latvia became a member of EU in 2004, foreign investment increased rapidly more than ever, although Latvia needed to develop the ability to achieve sustained economic growth on her own. Parex Bank’s rapid growth during the 1990s’ and the nationalization of Parex Bank in November 2008 after its bankruptcy shows us heavy Russian influence on Latvian economy. We have to continue paying attention to the invisible economic tie of Latvia with its influential neighboring country, Russia.
著者
村田 真一
出版者
The Japanese Association for Russian and East European Studies
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2009, no.38, pp.47-59, 2009 (Released:2011-10-14)
参考文献数
11

Russian society has been drastically changing for the past ten years, especially because of the terrible financial crisis that has struck the worlds’ economy in 2009. Due to this process of change, it is very difficult to provide a graphic illustration of today’s Russian literature and proffer a treatise on its future. It is nonetheless important and necessary to give a detailed analysis of the current state of Russian literature in order to investigate the direction in which the profound changes occurring in Russia and in Russian art are headed. This paper is aimed at analyzing the novels of the most important Russian writers from the 1990s to the present day and examining how they are perceived by the public of readers in Russia. Many of these novels have yet to be translated into Japanese and are not widely known. In the post-Communist era, a select number of Russian writers began to publish a myriad of works under the banner of “here and now”. These works were written using many expressions taken from everyday slang without any direct reference to classical literature. Rather, the writers aimed at representing what they saw “in front of their eyes” and depicted themselves in the micro-cosmos of their own literature. Readers can access all of these works on the Internet. Literature has greatly changed from what we knew it to be a decade ago. Even the Internet has become a great library that anyone can approarch. For example, until the 1990s, writers would argue what the revolution meant for Russia, and politics were often discussed in their works. Nowadays, issues like these are not considered as important in contemporary literature. It is possible to consider “post-realism” as the most appropriate definition of Russian literature from the 1990s hitherto. This concept has been proposed by N. Lejderman and M. Lipovitsky, who worked to combine realism and post-modernism. In terms of analyzing the style of contemporary Russian writers, we can regard V. Erofeev and O. Slavnikova as the representatives of the 1990s and the 2000s. The text of “Overshoes” and “Encyclopedia of Russian Soul” by V. Erofeev, “2017” and “Love in the seventh Coach” by O. Slavnikova show that the same writers can compose in different styles. “Magic-realism”, observed in their novels, is also a characteristic of Russian literature which derives from the 1990s. In addition to popular B. Akunin, L. Petrushevskaya, L. Ulitskaya and aforementioned authors, the most important Russian writers today must be D. Rubina, A. Gelasimov, V. P’etsukh, Z. Prilepin, and also M. Shishkin, E. Limonov as the writers of “diaspora”. Traditionally, Russian literature has always tried to blaspheme authority, drawing largely on poetry and metaphors to slander establishment. Does today’s Russian literature dare to do this? Does censorship still exist in Russia? These are the questions for us to answer.
著者
小山 洋司
出版者
The Japanese Association for Russian and East European Studies
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2009, no.38, pp.60-71, 2009 (Released:2011-10-14)
参考文献数
26
被引用文献数
1

With the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, Macedonia became an independent state. Similar to other Republics of the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia had to carry out double transitions, i.e. transition to a market economy and transition from a regional economy to a national economy. For a newly independent small country to survive the environment of market economy, it is required to settle domestic conflicts, establish good relationship with neighboring countries and secure economic independence. Western Balkan countries, which have experienced ethnic conflicts and still have domestic ethnic problems, would not be assured of their survival as long as they remain outside the European Union. This paper examines how Macedonia has been tackling the above mentioned problems, proceeding toward EU accession in the context of the EU’s Stabilization and Association Process. This paper stresses the following points: First, domestic conflicts between the Macedonian population and the Albanian population was settled for the time being by the Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001, but the situation is still precarious. Their peaceful co-existence should be consolidated with support from the international community, especially the EU. Second, at the turn of the 21st century the relationship with its neighboring countries, except Greece, has been significantly improved. As Greece is the nearest member country of the EU, it is urgently necessary for Macedonia to improve its relationship with this country. Regardless of the diplomatic conflict over the name of the country with Greece, the economic relation between both countries is becoming closer. However, as long as Greece opposes, Macedonia will not be able to enter into its accession negotiations with EU. It seems that a compromise between both countries in this regard is not impossible. Third, CEFTA 2006, a multilateral free trade agreement, is very important for Macedonia. Western Balkan countries are required to endeavor to make this agreement effectively function in order to increase intra-regional trade, attract more FDI and prepare for their EU accession. Fourth, Macedonia is facing a problem of structural fragility of its economy. Its external debt and domestic public debt are not at so critical levels. However, the unemployment is very high and its informal sector has reached an abnormally big scale. It is urgently necessary for the country to increase jobs. Also the problem of chronic trade deficit should be overcome.
著者
堀林 巧
出版者
The Japanese Association for Russian and East European Studies
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2010, no.39, pp.1-12, 2010 (Released:2012-06-20)
参考文献数
24

This paper examines the systemic change from communism to capitalism and the transformation of the welfare system in the Visegrad countries, the Baltic states and Slovenia. The CEE countries aimed to create capitalism through liberalization, macro-stabilization and privatization of the state-owned firms after the breakdown of communism. The first attempts at privatizing the large state-owned firms in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic resulted in different types of state and private “hybrid ownership” structures in which some state paternalism remained. The state paternalism remained in Slovakia, too. The Baltic states adopted the most radical liberalization and macro-stabilization policy in the region to create a form of capitalism, which was furthest removed from the past-communism symbolized by the former Soviet Union since they considered independence from Russia as the most important challenge of the systemic change. While Slovenia created a German type of corporatist industrial relation in the first half of the 1990s on the basis of the past legacy, i.e., self-management socialism, it implemented privatization gradually. Due to both internal and external reasons such as the CEE countries’ low level of domestic capital accumulation and their accession into the EU, the inflow of FDI from old EU member states into the CEE increased at a faster pace since the late 1990s. As a result, “dependent capitalism” emerged in the eight CEE countries. The Visegrad countries enjoyed a higher pace of economic growth through multinational-led export increases by the late 2000s. In the Baltic states, a “housing and consumption boom” originated from the excess-loans from foreign bank affiliates to households. However, the CEE economies (except Poland) were severely damaged by the spread of the financial crisis and recessions in the core EU member states after the late 2008. From this event, one should keep in mind the negative aspects of the excess-dependence on foreign capital in the CEE economies. The communist welfare system consisted of full employment, universal social insurance, a firm-based system of service, fringe benefits and subsidized prices for basic necessities such as food and housing. The “transition recession” in the beginning of the 1990s led to massive unemployment and the end of full employment in the CEE. By introducing unemployment benefits and social assistance system in order to cope with the increase of the poor and unemployed in the beginning of the 1990s, the welfare system of the CEE moved closer to those of Continental European type. From the mid-1990s, the social policies of many CEE countries shifted to what the World Bank had recommended. For example, many countries in the CEE implemented pension reform, including partial privatization, although Slovenia and the Czech Republic did not. The fact that poverty rate in Slovenia and the Czech Republic is much lower than those in Poland and Baltic states reflects different social policy stances. It also reveals historical path-dependency since Slovenia and the Czech Republic created the most developed capitalism in the CEE as measured by per capita GDP on the basis of historical legacy. Before the breakdown of communism, both Slovenia and the Czech Republic belonged to the advanced region in the Eastern Europe.
著者
中村 健史
出版者
ロシア・東欧学会
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2008, no.37, pp.69-81, 2008 (Released:2010-05-31)

In June 2008, Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter Bosnia) signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU. The signing of SAA, however, does not mean reconciliation among nationalist parties who had started the war came to an end successfully. Instead these parties are still dominant in political sphere of Bosnia. On the other hand, as Bosnia comes closer to the EU, Bosnia will inevitably need to express ownership, that is, to have will and capability to tackle reform agenda necessary to join the EU. Although the term‘ownership’ can be used in the context of politics, civil society and business, ownership in this article limits its scope to political one. The main agenda of ownership is, thus, capability to cooperate, discuss and come to an agreement among politicians of Bosnia.Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) installed in Bosnia the Office of the High Representative (OHR) as a representative of international community. OHR is responsible of supervising civilian aspects of peace implementation with extremely huge authority. In addition, DPA provided Bosnia with consociational democracy. As is shown in this article, Bosnia lacks cooperation among political elites, in other words, ownership. Recently OHR has been moving from regulation with coercive power to that of EU integration requirements. Therefore, this article tries to figure out current situation and future prospect of ethnic division in Bosnia, taking police reform as a case. At first, Bosnian state structure set by DPA is analyzed from consociational democracy perspective. Secondly, it clarifies international community's approach towards Bosnian ethnic division. Thirdly, the extent to which Bosnia politicians showed the sense of ownership and international community's influence on it are examined.
著者
本田 登
出版者
ロシア・東欧学会
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2008, no.37, pp.82-93, 2008 (Released:2010-05-31)

The aim of this paper is to interpret Daniil Kharms' poem “Khnyu”, by analyzing its mysterious eponymous central character. Kharms wrote four poems in which this character appears; among these works “Khnyu” is the most important. In this poem a town, which lives according to conventional logic, is seen in opposition to water. The plot is that Khnyu leaves a forest, which is filled with images of life and liquid, enters the town, and takes control of its water. If its water is controlled by Khnyu, this is a threat to the town, for water is the opposite of logic. Another feature of the poem is that a literary group called OBERIU, which Kharms once belonged to, also appears in it. This group is on the same side as Water, for its members also try to deny the accustomed rule of “reasoning about meanings” Additionally, in the poem when OBERIU has the power to transform people into trees; they lose their ability to use conventional logic and come to belong to the forest which Khnyu comes from.In creating the character Khnyu, Kharms was thinking of the ancient Egyptian God Khnum, the God of creation who can cause floods in the River Nile so as to make plants flourish. At this stage in his career, Kharms was insisting that we could grasp “things-in-themselves” by depriving them of any conventional meaning, grasping only their bare existence. From Kharms' point of view this amounted to the creation of the World. There is a similarity between this thought and the attribute of the god Khnum, and Kharms invented the character Khnyu in order to symbolize this thought in the poem. In the end, however, Khnyu could not completely deny conventional logic, but one of the other characters, her companion, supported her policy. Kharms, in writing this poem, might have been thinking about his own fate. Shortly before the poem “Khnyu” was written, OBERIU had been banned; Kharms, however, believed in himself and never gave up writing.
著者
黛 秋津
出版者
ロシア・東欧学会
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2008, no.37, pp.94-105, 2008 (Released:2010-05-31)

Undoubtedly, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union played an important role in modern Balkan history. In international politics, the treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji (1774) is considered as one of the most significant points for Russian advancement into the Balkans. This article outlines the significance of this treaty by analysing its background and stipulations.After the Ottoman Empire lost its predominance over the West European countries and Russia at the end of the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, the Habsburg Empire and the newly emerging Prussia coexisted in the first half of the following century and these four countries gradually strengthened their ties. In this situation, Russia attempted to expand its influence into the Balkans. However, at that time the Ottoman control over the Balkans was still so firm that such attempts were unsuccessful.This situation, however, changed when the Russo-Ottoman war broke out in 1768. In this war, the Russian troops defeated the Ottoman troops at most fronts including Greece and the Danubian principalities. As Russia's victory continued, the orthodox subjects in the Balkans began to expect Russian protection. Consequently, the Habsburg Empire and Prussia sensed an impending crisis due to the expansion of the Russian influence into the Balkans, and they began to intervene in this war as mediators. In the peace negotiations, although Russia occupied most of the territory of Wallachia and Moldavia, it was obliged to return both countries to the Ottoman Empire because of immense pressure from both the mediators. Nevertheless, Russia attempted to maintain its influence on the Danubian principalities and to obtain some clues for its advancement into the Balkans in the future. In 1774, Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed a peace agreement at Kuchuk Kainardji.Then, we analyse the contents of this treaty. We consider that there were three articles that enabled Russian advancement into the Balkans. Firstly, Article 16 stipulates Ottoman protection for the local subjects in Wallachia and Moldavia and in this article Russia obtained a voice concerning the affairs of both principalities. This right allowed Russia to officially involve itself in the issues pertaining to the Danubian principalities, and these two countries provided the base for Russia's further advancement into the Balkans. Secondly, some researchers have conjectured that owing to this treaty, Russia obtained the right to protect the orthodox Christian subjects in the Ottoman Empire; however, this is not true. Article 7 states that the orthodox Christian subjects in the Ottoman Empire must be protected by the Porte and not by Russia. The above-mentioned misunderstanding was caused due to Russia's exaggerated insistence on the eve of the Crimean War that in this treaty, it had obtained the right to protect the orthodox Ottoman subjects. However, it is true that this treaty was indirectly the beginning for Russia's insistence. Thirdly, Article 11, which stipulates the activities of merchants, provides Russia the right to open consulates anywhere within the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Using this right, Russia opened consulates and vice-consulates in the Danubian principalities in the 1780s, followed by those in the other Balkan areas in the nineteenth century. These consulates played an important role in Russian advancement into the Balkans by collecting information, maintaining contact with local leaders, ecclesiastics and other local influential men.Thus, this treaty was of great significance for Russian advancement into the Balkans.
著者
劉 旭
出版者
ロシア・東欧学会
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2008, no.37, pp.106-119, 2008 (Released:2010-05-31)
参考文献数
10

Environmental problems accompanying oil development in Russia has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years especially in the field of construction of oil and gas pipeline. These problems have a considerable impact on the advance of oil and gas projects, a good example of which is the issue of Trans Sakhalin Pipeline in 2006, bringing, as a result, an essential change to the structure of the operator company. This paper focuses on the essence and the solution of environmental problems with oil and gas development in Russia, analyzing the construction of the ESPO pipeline.In Russia, a series of laws have been issued and many administrative agencies have been set up to cope with environmental problems. The Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service (Rostehnadzor) and the Federal Supervisory Natural Resources Management Service (Rosprirodnadzor) are taking charge of the environmental expertise of oil and gas projects including the construction of the ESPO pipeline as representatives of the federal government.The construction of the ESPO pipeline is planned to be carried out by two phases. ESPO-1 is under construction and divided into four sections, while ESPO-2 is in designing process. Environmental problems occurred in both ESPO-1 and ESPO-2, including the construction method past Lena River and the design of the route passing Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krai. There are four groups of actors participating in resolving these problems: environmental administrative agencies, pipeline operator company, local governments and social environmental organizations.Four conclusions are derived from the analysis on the environmental problems of the construction of the ESPO pipeline. Firstly, because oil and gas development and pipeline construction is going on in underdeveloped areas under the harsh natural conditions, many environmental problems do and will occur in the construction of the ESPO pipeline Secondly, the social consensus on environmental problems has not been achieved yet and the resolution of these problems, therefore, are still depending upon confrontation of political powers of different actor groups. Thirdly, a distribution of authority between environmental administrative agencies has not been explicitly defined. Fourthly, attracting international interest to the ESPO construction is a promising method to promote adequate resolution of environmental problems.
著者
上垣 彰
出版者
The Japanese Association for Russian and East European Studies
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2009, no.38, pp.4-16, 2009 (Released:2011-10-14)
参考文献数
35
被引用文献数
1 1

There are three conundrums as for the relation between the Russian economy and the Sub-Prime financial crisis. Firstly, it is not clear why Russia’s GDP has been damaged so severely after the crisis comparing with other leading countries including China. Secondly, we have not yet found out a main process through which the American crisis reached Russia. Because Russian financial institutions did not have Sub-Prime-related securities so much, it does not stand to reason that they suffered the same kind of turbulence as British or German banks had. Thirdly, why such a basically financial affair as the Sub-Prime crisis has had a serious effect on economic real sectors of Russia is not easy to understand. In the case of the financial crisis in 1998 the real sectors of Russia did not have close connections with its financial sectors and therefore they did not receive serious damages from the financial sectors. Have the connections between the real sectors and financial sectors in Russia strengthened considerably in the last ten years? Among these three conundrums this article tries to answer to the last two and give a hint to the first one. As for the second conundrum the author insists that foreign financial institutions, which had held much Sub-Prime-related assets, withdrew their capital from Russia to compensate their losses in the crisis, which in turn brought Russian financial institutions into a difficult situation. As for the third one it is emphasized that the real and financial sectors in Russia have not yet achieved modern close relationship and that we must find another factor that led to economic difficulties of the real sectors of Russia. For example, the so-called financial deepening cannot be considered to have proceeded sufficiently in Russia if compared to Japan, England, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. As for the first one the author suggests that decrease of “terms of trade effect” after the crisis, which occurred because of oil price decline, might have been one of the important factors for GDP setback. By explaining about these three conundrums the author clarifies a special economic structure of Russia: vulnerability to foreign shocks.
著者
兵頭 慎治
出版者
The Japanese Association for Russian and East European Studies
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2009, no.38, pp.17-29, 2009 (Released:2011-10-14)

This article examines how the global financial and economic crisis and the accompanying change in international oil prices have affected Russia’s internal and external affairs, especially the tandem system of governance and its foreign policy towards East Asia. Because this crisis was not foreseen when the tandem administration was introduced, at present, political stability is suffering from poor crisis management. While it cannot be said that the tandem system has been fundamentally damaged, judging from the fact that Prime Minister Putin is increasingly adopting a hands-on approach, the probability that he will be back as President in the coming presidential election is growing. Though not proved, Russia’s assertive foreign policy largely depended on the high international oil prices before the Georgian conflict. Whether Russia likes it or not, after the global financial and economic crisis, Russia has to tap East Asia to recover its economic growth by exporting more energy products to the emerging new markets there. However, we should not overestimate this trend as East Asia is not Russia’s top-most foreign policy priority, and Russia does not accord that much strategic importance to East Asia. Because Russia’s national goal for 2020, as stated in “National Security Strategy through to 2020 of Russian Federation,” is continued economic growth so as to become the fifth-largest economy in the world, it is much more important—after this crisis—to pay attention to the correlation between economic and political factors using the interdisciplinary method.
著者
伊東 克弥
出版者
ロシア・東欧学会
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2007, no.36, pp.173-182, 2007 (Released:2010-05-31)

The purpose of this note is to examine the impact of oil price changes on the Russian economy: to what extent does oil price shock influence its gross domestic product (GDP) and the price level? Another goal of this note is to examine the effect of monetary policy. In order to identify the impacts, a vector autoregressive (VAR) model is employed. The time span covered by the series is from the first quarter of 1997 to the third quarter of 2007. Our findings are as follows: when UOP rises 1 per cent, RGDP grows 0.3 per cent. At the same time, the shock leads to a negative 0.4 per cent increase in CPI. The important point to note is the asymmetry of the CPI. It seems reasonable to suppose that this reflects the successful economic policy.
著者
中西 健
出版者
ロシア・東欧学会
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2007, no.36, pp.183-193, 2007 (Released:2010-05-31)

This is to analyze politicians' exploitation of the North-South rift in Kyrgyzstan from the so called “Tulip Revolution” which ousted President Akaev in March 2005, to the first Parliamentary election based on a proportional system which was conducted in December 2007.Concerning the analysis of contemporary Kyrgyzstani politics, some researchers emphasize the North and South rivalry. On the other hand, others insist that the Kyrgyz politicians ally and separate amorphously, regardless of the North and South factor.Since President Bakiev has held power, facing the mass rallies against him, he succeeded in grasping control of the Parliament through the first Parliamentary election on the basis of proportional representation.This author analyzes the course of the consolidation of power by President Bakiev and the exploitation of the regional and tribal factors. Alliances and ruptures among politicians were observed regardless of the North and South factor, but this factor plays an important role in the politics of Kyrgyzstan. The results of the analysis of the Parliamentary election are as follows:1) Political division seperated by North and South2) Recognition of rift between North and South in the election poll3) Imbalance between the political forces in North and South4) Unification in North and South as a result of regional and tribal factors rather than policyThis analysis concludes that Kyrgyz politicians exploit both regional and tribal factors which are then employed in strategies for consolidation in an attempt to divide their opponents.