Contenu du sommaire

Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Social, political and religious structure of Northern Caucasus in the sixteenth century. At the end of the sixteenth century, the Caucasus is torn by the ferocious strife of rival Powers grouped into two blocks: on the one side, the Sublime Porte and the khanate of Crimea, supported by the Shaybanids of Turkestan, and on the other, Muscovy, Transcaucasia, Christian Georgia and the Safavide Empire. At stake in this dispute is the influence exercised on the tribes and principalities of the Caucasus, which would ensure to the victor the control of the commercial and military roads that run along the two great axes: West-East, Azaq-Tabriz, and North-South, Astrakhan-Tabriz. It is essential to study the social structure of the Caucasus to fully understand the tactical manoeuvres of the Powers involved in these regions and to demonstrate that the role played by them depended, to a great extent, upon the degree of organization of this society, the feudal allegiances that dominated therein and the impact of the religious factor, still rather unstable - it must be noted - among certain peoples.

Myriam Désert, The Soviet foreman in the organizational patterns. The purpose of the article is to study the foreman of the enterprise, a character situated at the delimitation line between the two stages of production: execution and decision. It focuses on monographies and memoirs, as well as on the way in which foremen are featured in the specialized press and "hagiographies". It endeavors to emphasize their position in the hierarchy and in the organizational patterns, the relationship between the management, the foreman and his subordinates.

Yossef Bodansky, Muslims, high technology, and the Soviet military. The demographical trends in the Soviet population are bound to have a substantial effect on the composition of the Soviet Armed Forces. If the current composition of the elite and professional combat arms is maintained, Muslims will comprise some 75% of the personnel of the Ground Forces in the year 2000. The Soviets already have major, though manageable, problems with their Muslim troops. These are very similar to problems already faced by the Soviet advisers in the Middle East. There, they have come with relatively successful working solutions. The Soviets, however, have committed themselves to the use of the Armed Forces as a Russifying "melting pot" of the various nationalities, including Muslims. The proven working solutions and the Marxist-Leninist "melting pot" goal contradict each other. The Soviets will have to chose between a pragmatic approach and a ideologically motivated direct confrontation with their Islamic population.

Paul J. Kingston, Broadcasts in French from Moscow. Febr. 1940- Aug. 1941. An evaluation of the reorientation of radio propaganda. The nature and evolution of Russian radio propaganda directed towards France during the Second World War is a much-neglected subject. This article examines the structure and programme-building of broadcasts in French from Moscow over an eighteen-month period, February 1940-August 1941, which was of crucial significance for France and the Soviet Union, both of which suffered invasion by German armies. The disintegration of the Germano— Soviet pact necessitated a radical reorientation of Soviet propaganda to the Allied nations, and the article provides a detailed presentation of the shifts in perspective of broadcasts in French. Transcripts and reports by the BBC Monitoring Service of the period form the documentary basis for this study.

Michel Mervaud, Hegel or Tolstoi? Pavel Bakunin in his writings and correspondence with his niece, E.N. Vul'f. When presenting the extracts of the hitherto unpublished correspondence of Pavel Bakunin, one is forced to remember who was this little known brother of the famous revolutionary. Such is the aim of the introductory essay. After having briefly recounted the essential periods of his life, the article proceeds to analyse the two philosophical works of Pavel Bakunin, establishing the relationship of his thought to Hegel's philosophy with which it is connected, and to that of Tolstoi to which Pavel's thought is sometimes compared. As a matter of fact - as the author endeavours to prove -, P. Bakunin' s religious thought is an original one and deserves to be studied per se, so much so that it has been said that it was the precursor of personalist philosophies. Directed against positivism and scientism, Bakunin' s ideology comprises conservative aspects which clearly appear in his correspondence with his brother Mikhail or when he analyses the feminist outlooks, as he does in one of his books. The introduction ends by a presentation of correspondence, which expresses the main subjects of P. Bakunin's thought, dominated by his belief in God and in the immortality of soul.

Mikhail Osorgin's letters and articles, presented by Tatiana Ossorguine. The publication offered below comprises three parts. The first one bears on three letters dated 1936, addressed by Osorgin to an old friend in Moscow: the promulgation of Stalin's constitution gave rise to intense but brief polemics. The articles published in the second part are connected to the series written in France during the war and the occupation, some of which appeared in the newspaper Novoe russkoe slovo during the period that goes from the beginning of 1941 to the end of 1942. The texts presented here were not published in this newspaper nor in the book Pis 'ma о neznachitel 'nom (1952, ed. Chekhov, New York). The third part is composed of letters addressed by Mikhail Osorgin to close friends during the occupation. A note provides fundamental data on the life and work of Mikhail Osorgin.