Russian Studies In United Kingdom In The Post-Cold War Period

The history of Russian Studies in British academia is more than400years. They have accumulated a wealth of research experience, and numerous outstanding achievements and well-known scholars. After the end of the Cold War, British scholars still study and work very hard. Focusing on the Russia's transition issues, they put forward a lot of brilliant opinions. Their work has made tremendous contributions to the development of the International Slavic studies. Their high level of research achievements plays an important role in assisting the British Government in formulating foreign policy, even had subtle influence on the evolution of contemporary international system.The main content of this dissertation is the situation of Russian and Soviet Studies in British academia after the Cold War. It's an analysis, synthesis and evaluation for the situation of special historical period and special research area. The purpose of the dissertation is based on the understanding of historical and contemporary overview of Russian studies in the United Kingdom, by examining the British academia after the end of the Cold War more than20years in Russia and the Soviet Union's political transition, economic restructuring, historical and diplomatic areas of research results of the basic ideological tendencies of the British research community in Russia, theoretical perspectives, research methods. We are trying to interpret and summarize the relevant academic achievements, and eventually formed after the Cold War, the Russian studies status of the overall cognitive and comprehensive evaluation through a variety of research methods.This dissertation is divided into seven chapters, first of all, systematically summary the history of the development of Russian studies in the United Kingdom, followed by in-depth analysis of the major achievements of the post-Cold War Russian studies in the United Kingdom category, and finally to summarize the main features and spectrum of the post-Cold War Russian studies in the United Kingdom. The first chapter is the introduction part; its main content is narrative of the origins of this subject, as well as the subject in the importance of multiple levels of academic history, theory and diplomatic practice. Then we try to comprehensively summary the situation of international and domestic research on the topics. At the same time, we also introduce the main method of data collection in this research, the basic analysis of the path and the full text of the research framework.Chapter â…¡ is the outline of Russian Studies in the United Kingdom. This chapter includes two parts, one is the history of Russian Studies in UK, and another is basic situation of Russian Studies in UK after Cold War period. We reviewed the history of the research since the16th century and introduced the leading British scholars and their achievements in different periods. Then we focus on the situation of the contemporary Russian studies in the United Kingdom, described in detail on the contemporary British academia's major research institutions, the mainstream scholars, the main academic journals. Finally, we analyze the changes of research areas and issues in post-Cold War period through the quantitative method.Chapter â…¢ is the British Russian political transition studies after the Cold War. On the basis of summing up the overall study situation, we summarize contemporary British scholar's point of view of the British scholars on the problem of Russia's political transition after the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian political system in the transition period and Putin regime are the most important issues in this period. And we carefully explain different points on related issues.Chapter â…£ is the British Russian economic transition studies after the Cold War. According to the British scholar differences of ideas, we analyze the two competitive and opposite views on Russia's economic transition in British Academia by the comparative Research Method. Mainstream British scholars'thought still is neo-liberalism, their main objectives of Russia's economic transition is market-oriented liberalization. But left-wing scholars adhere to the perspective of Marxism, so the equality, social benefits and other socialism factors are their basic standard to evaluate Russia's economic transformation.Chapter â…¤ is the British Russian history studies after the Cold War. The historical research is an important tradition of the British academia, and history method is one of the basic research methods. British historians, who actively participate in the transition issues, try to interpret the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia's transition by the history of perspective, and come to a lot of predictable important theoretical points. The theory of "empire" and other contents of historical research are introduced in this chapter.Chapter â…¥ is the British Russian diplomacy studies after the Cold War. In Russian research areas in the UK, most representative views about Russian diplomatic issues are related to think tanks. By virtue of their familiar with foreign affairs, and possess a wealth of firsthand information data, and other advantages, the scholars in think tanks have made very rich and valuable achievements in the research areas of the British Russian diplomacy. According to contents of different issues, we summarize the overview British Russian diplomacy studies after the Cold War in this chapter.Chapter â…¦ is the conclusion part. After the comprehensive analysis of political, economic, historical and diplomatic fields, we summarized the spectrum and characters in the post-Cold War Russian Studies in the UK. Then we can evaluate the advantages and disadvantages on Russian studies in the UK. Finally, we can make the appropriate conclusions.