The Martyrdom of Nadezhda Kurchenko: Soviet Hero Cults and the Spiritual Turn in Late Socialism

Abstract This article argues that the spiritual turn in Soviet atheism under Brezhnev provided a meaningful solution to the problems of producing heroes when self‐sacrificing martyrs were losing their appeal. To support this claim, I examine the story of Nadezhda Kurchenko, a nineteen‐year‐old flight attendant killed by two hijackers on an Aeroflot plane in October 1970. This article traces the heroic and spiritual dynamics of Kurchenko’s martyrdom through her funeral, hagiographies, iconic photograph, and sacred spaces. The spiritual turn enabled the authors of her story to free it from the shadows of wartime youth martyrs and ground it in the conservative values of mature socialism. Her martyrdom was emblematic of Soviet atheism’s renewed project of supplanting religion with a secular spirituality, particularly around the life‐cycle rituals of birth, coming‐of‐age, marriage, and death. Although the aim of destroying religion failed, the spiritual turn created the cultural context in which the authors of Kurchenko’s story developed its meanings and rituals that endured after 1991. This article bridges the historiographies on hero cults and Soviet atheism, and it ends by considering the post‐Soviet afterlives of Kurchenko’s martyrdom during the Russo‐Ukrainian War.

Before We Disappear into Oblivion: San Francisco’s Russian Diaspora from Revolution to Cold War by

Revolution and Civil War in North Russia: Karelia and the Murmansk Region, 1917–1920 by

War by Other Means: Western Sanctions on Russia and Moscow’s Response by

Sister City Diplomacy: Community Engagement in U.S.‐Russian Relations from the Cold War to Today  by

Smoke, Mirrors, and Memories: Legacies of the Soviet‐Afghan War by

East–South Women Internationalism at the Cold War Periphery: Coming Together in Tashkent, Havana, and Beyond by

Simulated Nationalism: Hyperreality and the Visual Politics of the Tigray War on Social Media

ABSTRACT This article examines how images and hashtags circulated on Twitter during the Tigray War (2020–2022) functioned as hyperreal simulations of nationalism. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality and employing a qualitative visual discourse analysis of 30 curated images, the study investigates how digital artefacts displaced empirical realities with aestheticised narratives of legitimacy, victimhood and resistance. By integrating insights from visual culture, digital nationalism and affect theory, the analysis reveals how these visual texts mobilised affective publics and constructed simulated national imaginaries. The study argues that in the digital spectacle of war, nationalism is not merely expressed but fabricated through stylised and emotionally charged representations. These findings contribute to sociological debates on nationalism, conflict and media by demonstrating how hyperreal aesthetics and platform dynamics converge to reconfigure political meaning in the posttruth era.

Surviving the Post–Biafran War by Navigating the Igbo People's Igba‐Boi Apprenticeship Model of Entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT After the Nigerian Civil War, the Biafrans started from scratch through trades, mostly adopting the igba‐boi apprenticeship system in Nigeria. This paper examines the impact of the igba‐boi entrepreneurship system in post‐Biafra for the survival of the Igbo identity. Historical–analytical and documentary methods were adopted in this investigation, through primary and secondary sources. This study found different phases of the igba‐boi‐apprenticeship model, which was adopted in entrepreneurship by the Igbos to survive after the war. This study found that economic towns in Eastern Nigeria, like Aba, Owerri, Enugu, Nnewi, Onitsha and Awka, have enhanced economic development. Also, it found that umu‐boi and ndi‐oga have synergies after freedom, as they could operate in different prime locations and exchange goods amicably. The implications for both economic resilience and community development were highlighted as experiential learning. These lessons underscore the effectiveness of communal support, mentorship and structured transitions to financial independence. It contributes to the discussions about recovery after the war, entrepreneurship in Africa, Biafran nationalism and the formation of ethnic identities.

Disease ecology in health and medical geography: History, progress, and innovations†

This paper describes the development of the disease ecology tradition of health and medical geography including some key themes and innovations. It first grounds disease ecology in the history of ecology from the natural sciences and the human ecology traditions within the social sciences. These ecological studies of disease developed in response to limitations in the biomedical approach to studying health and disease that developed after germ theory. While the biomedical approach, which mostly focused on human biology, led to groundbreaking advances in medicine for many decades, it had its limits. Disease ecology applications have modern roots in the decades before and after World War II through colonial and tropical medicine as well as work conducted in an array of other sites, including Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States when there were large efforts to create infectious diseases maps and conduct ecological analyses of diseases. Hundreds of disease ecology studies have been implemented on diverse disease systems since World War II. The field progressively broadened in scope, especially during the 1990s and beyond, with several innovations including the application of political ecology approaches to the study of health and disease. Two other recent innovations are summarized through case studies: disease ecology approaches in health intervention research and applications of theory and methods from landscape genetics. The first case study highlights the ecological and geographic heterogeneity associated with the health impacts of drinking‐water tubewell interventions in rural Bangladesh. The paper also considers ‘landscape genetics’ approaches via a case study about influenza that uses modern genetic and spatial tools along with an ecological approach; it describes how the evolution of the virus is related to human‐environment‐animal interactions. The paper concludes by outlining promising future directions for disease ecology, emphasizing the field's ongoing incorporation of new theories and methods.