Suchergebnisse

If you type in the word 'revolution' in the Google search engine the top result that comes up is a chain of bars called Revolution. Other results on the first page of the search engine include a commercial radio station, clothing, a skate park and a software company. A Wikipedia page and the website of the Revolutionary Socialist Youth are the only non-commercial results Google provides us on its first page. This says as much about the business model of Google than it does about the changes at the level of meanings attributed to revolution. Revolution, it will be argued here, is a political signifier emptied of its radical connotations and currently used graciously as a brand or as a buzzword to mean change in whatever direction. As a result, revolution has been firmly incorporated into the neoliberal discourse and value system.

Though the German Democratic Republic (GDR) collapsed in 1990, after 41 years of existence, the socialist state lives on – in schoolbooks, museums, novels, films and in the memories of those who witnessed the "workers' and peasants' state." With GDR memory being a highly embattled discourse in Germany more generally, we ask how the GDR is constructed in German film. This means more specifically, what stories are being told and what interpretations suggested within the broader GDR memory discourse? To answer these questions, we offer a comparative three-level-analysis of the feature films Balloon (2018) and Sealed Lips (2019). Looking at the film-immanent, the structural and the actor-centered level, we find that East German directors, producers or actors can bring different albeit divergent perspectives on the GDR in film whose construction is currently dominated by West German elites.

In the last three decades many economic and politic changes involved post-socialist Countries. Their impacts have big effects on the most important parameters like, for instance, Gross Domestic Production (GDP) or Per capita Income, but also on the social and cultural issues, leading migrations between rural and urban areas. In order to examine main changes occurred in four towns (Sibiu in Romania, Pripyat in Ukraina, Astana in Kazakhstan and Shanghai in China), we considered satellite images (Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI or Terra MODIS/ASTER) in the timeframe from '80 till today. Using visual interpretation or NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) vegetation index and overlaying the free digital cartography of OpenStreetMap Project on satellite images, we evaluated urban dynamics for these post-socialist towns. Sibiu is a medium city located in a charming region at the centre of Europe, the Transylvania. By the comparison between the master plan realized in the 1974 and a recent ASTER satellite image (2003), we realized how the urban growth is following - until now - the socialist guidelines. However, in this timeframe the historic town centre is maintaining its identity role, unlike the planning developments: European cultural capital in 2007, Sibiu well represents the 'inherited' town. Otherwise, Pripyat is an almost unknown city of Ukraine: it was built since 1970 to serve the nearby nuclear power plant of Chernobyl. But from 1986, when the nuclear catastrophe occurred, this little town (about 45.000 people lived here) has become the symbol of the social and environmental risks linked to this technology. As put in evidence also from the overall NDVI increase estimated by the comparison of the 1986 and 2014 Landsat TM/OLI images, Pripyat is now a 'ghost city' for a region where the social, economic and environmental impacts of this disaster are still very relevant. Sited in a region characterized by extreme climatic conditions, the new capital of the Kazakhstan - Astana - is the third case study. The Landsat time-series images (collected between 1985 and 2016) shows its fast growth, mostly in the last period after the 1997 (year in which it became capital), so nowadays there are more than 830.000 people. Satellite images put in evidence main transformations inside the old city: new religious places, new halls of the power and new quarters are inserted in the original socialist urban network, currently changing this town in a 'postmodern' city. Finally we considered the most populous town of the China, Shanghai. In the last decades its demographic growth is impressive, rising from 12 million people in the early 1980s to the current almost 25 million people. So, also from the spatial perspective, the urban dynamic of Shanghai is remarkable. Visual interpretation of satellite images (four Landsat images from 1985 till 2016) highlights the deeply changes of the Shanghai municipality (about 6.450 square Kilometers), from rural into urban. Besides, the comparison between vegetation indices (evaluated on the Landsat images) put in evidence a new reticular urban network involving also the neighbouring regions. The free availability of software GIS (Geographic Information System) open source and data (digital cartography and satellite images) gave us the chance to achieve interesting results about four very different urban areas. However, these towns had a common history for a brief period of their 'life', so in the recent past their master plans and their urban development had deeply influenced by socialist criteria. Using these four examples, this research is only the first step trying to answer to the following question: almost thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, what are the post-socialist evidences left in these cities? ; In trent'anni il mutamento profondo di cultura, società ed economia dei paesi post-socialisti ha determinato una migrazione dalle aree rurali a quelle urbane. Questo volume prende in considerazione dati telerilevati e cartografia 'libera' di OpenStreetMap, analizzando foto satellitari storiche e attuali e l'indice di vegetazione dagli anni ottanta ad oggi, tutti dati fondamentalmente gratuiti. Sono quattro le città esaminate: Sibiu in Romania, Pripyat in Ucraina, Astana in Khazakhstan e Shangai nella Repubblica Popolare Cinese. È uno spunto eccezionale per approfondimenti e riflessioni: dopo tre decadi, quale impronta ha lasciato su queste realtà l'ideologia urbanistica socialista con la sua volontà pianificatrice?