In 1989 – 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was an auspicious moment for structural changes in education systems in the new independent countries, which had been under control of the Soviet government for a long time. About three decades have passed since the beginning of the education reforms in the post-Soviet countries and several generations who studied within the framework of the reformed systems starting from the first grade have already grown up. Therefore, it is relevant to estimate the results of the reforms. One of the possible measures for estimating the results of the education system or education reform is the change in population literacy within certain education systems. The purpose of the article is to compare the results of education reforms of the post-Soviet countries based on the population literacy considered as a result of former learning. The data of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are used for literacy comparison. The OECD PIAAC survey databases of Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia were used for comparison of the results of the reforms implemented in the post-Soviet countries. Data analysis showed that at the lower and upper secondary education levels, the most positive results of the education reform were observed in Lithuania, while in Russia, the results were negative.

Adaptation of generations in post-Soviet countries to most radical social changes

The article inquiries into the influence of age on the adaptation to changes among post-Soviet societies. The analysis of secondary data from survey research conducted in representative research samples in post-soviet republics was used in the research. Survey data from Russia (N=992), Belarus (N=1034), Moldova (N=970) and Ukraine (N=1000) was analyzed. The results show that the age facilitates positive adaptation. Younger generations had a higher level of happiness, evaluated their financial situation, their standing in the social hierarchy and prospects for the future better. The highest level of satisfaction with democracy was noted in Belarus and Russia. Lower marks were given by the citizens of Moldova, whereas the biggest disappointment was noticed in Ukraine. The Russians and the Belarusians followed by the Moldovans were located on high positions on the continuum of adaptation to social changes, but the Ukrainians managed to adapt to the system to the lowest degree.

This article claims that the legacy of European imperialism and colonialism in Africa can be conceptually compared to the legacy of Russian and Soviet imperialism and colonialism in the former USSR republics and the nations of Central and Easter Europe that were under Soviet dominations. Despite the obvious fact that the historical conditions and paths of African nations that were colonized, repressed and ruled by the European empires differ significantly from the experience of the nations of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, that were conquered and colonized by the Russian Empire and later on were subjects to the Soviet rule, it is suggested in this article, that the conceptual lessons drawn from the vast literature dedicated to the studies of the aftermath of colonialism in Africa can enrich the scholarly efforts aimed at understanding the post-soviet spaces and different processes in it. What is meant by “conceptual lessons” is methodological opportunity for a different perspective or even a different lens through which the legacy of the Soviet rule and the current Russian neo-imperial foreign politics can be better understood. Much is written about the European imperialism and its colonial policies, however there is still some reluctance in applying the methodological framework of postcolonial studies to the former Soviet Union and present day Russia. Scholars all over the world studied the colonial legacies that African nations struggled to overcome and there are topics of particular relevance to the study of the post-soviet space: the processes of post-colonial nation building, the roles of new national elites, the ideological choices in foreign policies of newly independent nations, the aftermath of the policies of assimilation, the imperial “ideologies of superiority”, the economic consequences of colonialism, the role of churches and religious organizations in supporting colonial suppression – as conceptual topics, all of them can be studied critically, also in a comparative perspective, to have a much better understanding of the former soviet and current Russian foreign politics and policies.