Suchergebnisse

This study highlights the specifics of the positioning of "the Soviet enemy" in Western video games of the 1980s. The perception of the relevant content is reconstructed by referring to the narrative of American and European retro gaming communities. The research methodology is built through a combination of structural, comparative and content analysis.

This article is a brief sketch of recent development of the doctrine and practice in Russian constitutional and administrative law. The focus is made on the controversial issues of state organization and status of individuals, as well as the realization of legal principles established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993.

The contemporary international law doctrine is critical to the notion of binding force of general positions of international courts. The grounds for this critics is more weighty in international law than in domestic law. If in the latter general binding force of judicial decisions erga omnes questions the separation of powers, in the former the states as the main actors of the international relations try to participate and control any norm-making. At the same time international courts realize the necessity of consistency of interpretation and applying of legal norms and principles, as unpredictable decisions breach the certainty of law. These courts demonstrate surprising uniformity of approaches to this issue, disregarding their status, legal grounds for their jurisdiction, the nature of the cases they consider. The courts recognize their duty to follow the sustainable interpretation of international law, as it appears in the own practice of these courts and other international authorities, because this is crucial for the definiteness of legal regulation, predictability of judicial decisions and consistency of legal solutions. The international courts reject following precedents according to the stare decisis rule and are very caution to declare following the concept of jurisprudence constant, trying to be equidistant to particular legal traditions. The legal acts regulating the international justice favour this caution, as they establish the binding force of judicial decisions only inter partes and within concrete case. In a case of need to deviate from the established practice both the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, European Court of Human Rights and international investment arbitration tribunals tend to (1) appeal to formal arguments of non-binding force of previous decisions, or (2) argue the differences of considering case with preceding cases, or (3) base on notions developed in their practice – e.g., the idea of "European consensus" in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights.

Introduction. The present study is devoted to the study of the influence of artifacts of the symbolic politics of the USA and the USSR on the positioning of the respective socio-political systems in modern video games. The article includes the content of the "Atomic Heart" video game studies and analysis from the point of view of the theory of social memory and symbolic politics. Methods and materials. A certain number of methods were used to solve the actual tasks in the article. In particular, case-study methods and elements of structural and comparative analysis were used. Analysis. The game "Atomic Heart" was chosen as a research case. The choice of the case is due to the high popularity of this game both within Russia and internationally, as well as the connection of the plot to the topic of the confrontation between the USSR and the United States after World War II and the presence of a wide representation of the symbolism of this conflict inside the game (up to the reproduction of real campaign materials). On the one hand, the ways of representing the USA in Soviet propaganda and their interpretation by video game developers are studied. On the other hand, the positioning of the Soviet Union by game designers and screenwriters by exploiting the images and stereotypes of perception that were formed in Western culture during the Cold War is examined. Results. The author concludes that, when forming the in-game symbols, the developers actively exploited the resource of Soviet aesthetics; however, Cold War narratives in Western mass culture works played a significant role in shaping the project's emotional, semantic, and value content. The main reason for this decision was most likely economic, as the game was created with the expectation of generating the main profit in foreign markets as a commercial product. However, this decision actually contributed to the resuscitation of the functional qualities of the symbolic legacy of the Cold War and the use of its narratives to correct the perceptions of the target audience about the USSR and its role in the confrontation between the two blocs.

The article deals with an under-researched problem of the history of the supply of the Russian army during the First World War — the organization of clothing supply. The author adopts a micro-historical approach, focusing his interest on the Shuiskii district of the Vladimir province. On the basis of the analyzed archival documents, the author comes to the conclusion that during the first year of the war, supplies were provided without the creation of special organizations. The situation changed in the summer of 1915. In July — August 1915, a network of army supply committees was created in the Vladimir province. This was the result of an attempt by the state and public organizations to build a single vertical of supply. After that, a range of items supplied to the army from the Shuiskii district expanded significantly — in addition to short fur coats, it includes sledges, carts, bushings, wheels, shell boxes. However, in the real process of fulfilling these orders the administrative and technological chain for the procurement of complex items of equipment was constantly faltering. This led to the refusal to work on complex orders — from the summer of 1916, the Shuiskii Committee switched exclusively to the delivery of cloth for foot wraps and woolen gloves to the army. In general, a detailed analysis of the work of the Shuiskii Supply Committee reveals the main reasons for the inconsistency in the work of zemstvos for supplying the army in 1914–1917.