Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2020, International Studies

In the late 1950's, African nations began to gain independence from colonizers and as such, assistance was needed. France and the Soviet Union were among the nations that took advantage of the opportunity. In jumping in to assist the newly independent nations, they were given the opportunity to increase their status as world leaders and strengthen their global economies and politics. Beginning with an analysis on French and Soviet involvement on the African continent from 1960 to 1990, this essay explores the reasons for involvement, the policies implemented by each country, the advantages Africa provided, and the extent to which each was able to influence the budding nations. In its conclusion, this work compares the French and Soviet involvement in Africa's post-colonialism.

Committee: Scott Rosenberg (Advisor); Christian Raffensperger (Committee Member); Lila Zaharkov (Committee Member) Subjects: African History; African Studies; European History; History; International Relations; Russian History; World History

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2020, History

This thesis examines the life of an engineer and professor Gustav Trinkler under the Imperial and Soviet Russia. By using archival materials, such as letters, certificates, reports, questionnaires, and a memoir, it explores his living conditions and interactions with authorities before and after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Trinkler was born in 1876 to a prosperous family of a predominantly German ethnicity. Despite his origins, he identified as a Russian throughout his life. Before the 1917 Revolution, Trinkler enjoyed cultivating his estate, sent his family on vacation to the south and petitioned his superiors requesting positions and financial assistance. After 1917, Trinkler aspired to maintain his living standards and re-engineered the life he knew: he obtained a new summer house, enjoyed family vacations in the south and kept sending petitions asking new, Soviet, authorities for assistance and benefits based on his technical skills. He managed to manufacture a Soviet life that was strikingly similar to his Imperial one even after his imprisonment as a "bourgeois" specialist in 1930. Using Trinkler's biography as a microhistory, this thesis points to the need to examine individuals' lives before 1917 to better understand the Soviet system and what constituted novel, "Soviet," behaviors.

Committee: Stephen Norris PhD (Advisor); Scott Kenworthy PhD (Committee Member); Francesca Silano PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Russian History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

This dissertation analyzes secret military cooperation between the Soviet Union and Germany from 1920 until 1933. Both states found themselves internationally isolated after World War I. Unable to meet their own security needs – despite immense ideological differences – they turned to each other in an unlikely partnership. Together, they established a network of secret military bases, testing grounds and laboratories inside Russia, where they jointly developed new aircraft, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. Their work together provided a dark glimpse of the future: Soviet military intelligence reports chronicled the rise of pro-Nazi sentiment among the German officers. German intelligence in turn described the growing cult of Stalin and the scenes of mass starvation unfolding right outside the gates of their facilities in the wake of collectivization. And both sides practiced human experimentation in their joint chemical weapons facilities. But cooperation between the two states was more than just a harbinger of what was to come: the new ideas, technologies, and factories developed in this period of cooperation would serve a vital role in the course and conduct of the coming war. At its core, the interwar exchange of Russian space for German technology was a wager upon which the Second World War depended.

Committee: Jennifer Siegel (Advisor); Peter Mansoor (Committee Member); David Hoffmann (Committee Member); Alan Beyerchen (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Technology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2014, History

The thesis explores the relationship between the spatial relations of the first line of the Leningrad Metro system, completed in 1955, and subjectivity in the post-war Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Soviet subways were not simply mechanisms by which one travelled; often referred to as "underground palaces," these facilities featured art and architecture that informed passengers about the history, and the future, of the Soviet Union. Thus, the metro offers a glimpse of how the USSR conceived of itself and its position along the dialectical path to communism. I argue that the messages in the underground's walls, and the memoirs of the workers who constructed them, suggest that many of the reforms often associated with Nikita Khrushchev's Thaw period were actually well under way during Iosif Stalin's lifetime.

Committee: Stephen Norris (Advisor); Robert Thurston (Committee Member); Margaret Ziolkowski (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Slavic and East European Studies

“Global Positioning Semantics” is a political communication strategy by which a leader attempts to make his or her personal imagined world map, a person's understanding of his or her own country's relationship to the rest of the world, that of the entire nation. By analyzing the President of Uzbekistan's speeches and interviews spanning the twenty years after the fall of the USSR, I traced Karimov's description of the future Uzbek nation and other global actors—the USSR, Russia, the United States, Europe, China, Belligerent Islam, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia, and Afghanistan. In this project, in-depth qualitative analysis of the President's statements is accompanied by charts of the specific values—both traditional and modern—that Karimov assigned to the future Uzbek nation but repeatedly changed those that he attached to the other global actors as the utility of association with the actors became more or less advantageous. Like the north and south poles, Karimov's vision of the world was suspended between the negatively-charged symbolism of the Uzbek nation's Soviet past and the positively-charged ideal of the nation's glorious future. Countries and non-state actors that the President positioned near the negatively-charged pole are the recipients of the negative symbols associated with that pole. Actors that he situated near the positively-charged pole, Karimov described as already possessing some of the qualities of the future great Uzbek nation. The close relationship between the countries described with these complementary traits and the Republic of Uzbekistan allegorically advances the nation toward the realization of their destiny. I posit that by ascribing the characteristics of the Uzbek nation to other state and non-state actors, Islam Karimov indicated to the Uzbek people alongside which powers he believed the nation rightfully belonged as they established their post-Soviet national identity.

Committee: Morgan Liu PhD (Advisor); Theodora Dragostinova PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Asian Studies; International Relations; Political Science; Slavic Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Slavic and East European Studies

“Global Positioning Semantics” is a political communication strategy by which a leader attempts to make his or her personal imagined world map, a person's understanding of his or her own country's relationship to the rest of the world, that of the entire nation. By analyzing the President of Uzbekistan's speeches and interviews spanning the twenty years after the fall of the USSR, I traced Karimov's description of the future Uzbek nation and other global actors—the USSR, Russia, the United States, Europe, China, Belligerent Islam, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia, and Afghanistan. In this project, in-depth qualitative analysis of the President's statements is accompanied by charts of the specific values—both traditional and modern—that Karimov assigned to the future Uzbek nation repeatedly changed those that he attached to the other global actors as the utility of association with the actors became more or less advantageous. Like the north and south poles, Karimov's vision of the world was suspended between the negatively-charged symbolism of the Uzbek nation's Soviet past and the positively-charged ideal of the nation's glorious future. Countries and non-state actors that the President positioned near the negatively-charged pole are the recipients of the negative symbols associated with that pole. Actors that he situated near the positively-charged pole, Karimov described as already possessing some of the qualities of the future great Uzbek nation. The close relationship between the countries described with these complementary traits and the Republic of Uzbekistan allegorically advances the nation toward the realization of their destiny. I posit that by ascribing the characteristics of the Uzbek nation to other state and non-state actors, Islam Karimov indicated to the Uzbek people alongside which powers he believed the nation rightfully belonged as they established their post-Soviet national identity.

Committee: Morgan Liu (Advisor); Theodora Dragostinova (Other) Subjects: Asian Studies; International Relations; Islamic Studies; Political Science; Slavic Studies

BA, Oberlin College, 1976, History

The purpose of this paper will be to arrive at some sort of understanding about the real importance of nuclear weapons in the hands of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., something which has not been done heretofore in as skilled a fashion as is possible. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which are worth looking into because of the impact they have had on the actual policies of the United States.

Committee: Bruce Tufts (Advisor) Subjects: American History; European History; History; Military History