Urban Protest. Arve Hansen

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СКАЧАТЬ here to provide the reader with a sense of the complexity of the phenomenon: 1) the various forms of urban contention, 2) the motivations people have for action: and, 3) the local, regional, and global tendencies or waves of contention of which the collective action is part.

2.1.1 Form

      One form of urban contention is the violent mob, wholly or partially controlled by powerful individuals such as politicians, religious leaders, and oligarchs. The mob has often been used as a tool to incite violence in cities against political opponents and so change the political landscape. In the Ancient Roman Republic, for example, groups of discontented plebeians often became an important force in the frequent (and often violent) transitions of power (Brunt 1966). Another example might be the veche (popular assembly) of the Medieval East Slavic Novgorod Republic (1136–1478), where the crowd were often more powerful than their prince. Historical chronicles recount how the Novgorodians, under heavy influence from wealthy boyars, sometimes removed ineffective leaders by force (Paul 2008; Evtuhov, Goldfrank, Hughes, and Stites 2004, 88–89).

Urban contention can also be seen in the uncontrolled violent crowd which, under pressure, stands up to the ruling elites and overthrows them in violent riots, uprisings, and revolutions. The French Revolution (1789–1799) is a particularly prominent example because it shows how space can both foster discontent and provide a suitable environment for insurgencies.2

      Conversely, urban discontent can manifest as nonviolent protests, such as the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. (Lumsden 2000), or the 1919 May Fourth Movement at Tiananmen Square in Beijing (Wasserstrom 2005).

2.1.2 Motivation

      Another way to look at urban contention is by considering the motivation for the action. The US is a fitting example to illustrate that urban contention can have a wide range of different motives, ranging from a wish to improve living conditions, e.g. the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 (De-Michele 2008), to the many movements against wars and military interventions (see for example the protests against the war in Vietnam [History.com 2019], and in Iraq [Chan 2003]). Cities in the US have also seen multiple protests for the equal rights of oppressed groups in society, such as the 1969 Stonewall Riots and the birth of the Gay Rights Movement (Kuhn 2011), the feminist movements of the 1970s (Spain 2016), and the more recent Black Lives Matter protests (Karduni 2017); collective actions aimed at causing harm, such as racially motivated violence in Southern US cities (Olzak 1990); religiously inspired protests, such as the Washington for Jesus rally in 1980 (Flippen 2011, 1–23), and social movements against economic inequality, such as the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest movement (Gillham, Edwards, and Noakes 2013).

2.1.3 Waves

      A third approach to urban discontent is to see it as waves that come and go, sweeping through periods in history, changing power structures and the layout of societies. A large number of such waves of contention have occurred throughout history in cities across the globe. In Eastern Europe, for example, we can identify at least four waves, shown here together with their political aftermath:

      1917

Eastern Europe did not become part of the three European waves of revolution of the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s that followed in the aftermath of the French Revolution. But the radical new ideas of European thinkers, combined with the grievances of war and deep inequality in society, turned into a series of urban uprisings in the Russian Empire and eventually into the October Revolution of 1917. The Soviet Union was created in the aftermath of this revolution.3

      1950s and 1960s

The second wave of urban discontent in Eastern Europe started during the period of thaw introduced by Nikita Khrushchev in the aftermath of Stalin’s death in 1953. A series of mass protests against poor standards of living and political repressions broke out in the streets and squares of major cities in the Eastern Bloc. Notably, uprisings and demonstrations occurred in 1953 on Leipziger Straße in Berlin (Ostermann and Byrne 2001, 163–165), in 1956 on Adam Mickiewicz Square in Poznań (Grzelczak n.d., 98–101) and on Kossuth Lajos Square in Budapest, also in 1956.4 The public spaces of cities in several of the Warsaw Pact countries also featured in the worldwide protest movements of 1968, four years after the thaw ended. 5

      1985 to 1991

      From the second half of the 1980s, triggered by the 1986 glasnost (transparency/openness) and perestroika (restructuring) reform policies, urban protests started to appear in the Eastern Bloc. In the Baltics, for example, protesters actively used music in what would later be known as the Singing Revolution of 1987–1991 (Smidchens 2014). Opponents of the Soviet regime rganized numerous concerts in city centres and formed a human chain between the three capitals, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, to demonstrate their unity in their discontent with the USSR (2014, 249). These actions inspired similar protests, notably in Ukraine (Hansen, Rogatchevski, Steinholt and Wickström 2019, 36–37). Between 1989 and 1991, the Warsaw Pact gradually fell apart as series of both nonviolent and violent anti-communist revolutions occurred in capital cities across the Eastern Bloc. Notable events include masses of East Germans tearing down the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and the failed military coup of August 1991, which was partly stopped by the masses of people who went out into the public spaces of Moscow and other Russian cities (Marples 2004, 84). The Soviet Union was dissolved later that same year.

      2000s

      Following a somewhat chaotic decade in the 1990s,6 a new wave of social movements and mass protests hit the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia in the 2000s (see fig. 5). Inspired by the Eastern European protests of the late 1980s, the demonstrators used nonviolent means to occupy central public squares in capital cities. The protests were often triggered by election fraud, and they demanded (and often achieved) the resignation of the elites that had managed to hold on to power after the breakup of the Eastern Bloc. The social movements of the 2000s are usually known as colour revolutions, with reference to the bright colours and symbols employed by the protesters. Although not in the former Soviet Union, the Yugoslavian Bulldozer Revolution, which overthrew President Slobodan Milošević in 2000, is often regarded as the first of the colour revolutions (e.g. by Tucker 2005).

Figure 5: Notable protests and colour revolutions in post-Soviet states in the 2000s

Year	Country	Focal point	Name(s)	Result
2003	Georgia	In front of the Parliament (Tbilisi)	Rose Revolution	Resignation of President Shevardnadze, new parliamentary elections.
2003–2004	Armenia	Freedom Square (Yerevan)	2003–2004 Armenian Protests	Forceful removal of protesters, legal retributions against protesters and protest organisers.
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