We are in the process of creating an email list of researchers working on the late Soviet period, which will allow for information to be circulated and ideas shared. If you would like to be included in this list, please contact Geoffrey Hosking (g.hosking@ssees.ucl.ac.uk).
| 1 April 2005 - Programme |
Seminar Sessions
| Monday 18 October | Geoffrey Hosking: '1945-64: the decisive years of the Soviet Union' |
| Monday 15 November | Polly Jones: "Who were the 'Alleluia Singers?': Definitions and Denunciations of the Stalin cult during the Thaw" |
| Monday 31 January | Jeremy Smith: 'Modernisation under Khrushchev: the aims of the 1958 education reform' |
Geoffrey Hosking, SSEES-UCL, g.hosking@ssees.ucl.ac.uk
Susan Morrissey, SSEES-UCL, s.morrissey@ssees.ucl.ac.uk
Polly Jones, SSEES-UCL, p.jones@ssees.ucl.ac.uk
Juliane Fürst, Oxford, juliane.furst@sjc.ox.ac.uk
Miriam Dobson, Sheffield, m.dobson@shef.ac.uk
Dear Geoffrey,
I hope that your study-day was a great success; I had hoped to be able to attend, but in the end was unable to do so for logistical reasons!
You may have heard from Andrew that the book stemming from the "10 years since the Soviet Union" conference is about to come out. I hope to receive advance copies of The Legacy of the Soviet Union any day now.
I thought I should also write with some thoughts on how the themes of the study-day could be taken forward. I'd very much like to remain in the loop on this one.
I agree entirely that some of the most exciting new work is being done on the post-war period - late Stalinism and Khrushchev; although I think that it would be good to extend the period covered in any study-day or conference into the later Soviet (even post-Soviet?) decades. Without wanting to impose a teleological framework on study of the late Soviet period - by which I mean interpreting it in the light of the Soviet Union's eventual collapse - there are continuities into the so-called "transition" years. In fact, I think it is a fundamental error to look at the post-Soviet era in isolation from the late Soviet (post-Stalin) years; Alena's work on networks, for example, immediately comes to mind; Russia's current leaders were formed by the late Soviet period (Putin and Fradkov, as most obvious examples).
So, what themes might come up for discussion? One could look for forces of stability as well as fissures (causes of collapse). Were there factors at work that could have reinvigorated the state if differently handled? Maybe the most fruitful area in which to do this would be the area of culture (in its broadest sense) in the period after high-Stalinism. I would focus on themes such as:
Russian nationalism- both as a protest against the state (e.g. the fashion for Orthodoxy among urban intellectuals) and as a state-reinforcing ideology (e.g. the focus on victory in the Great Patriotic War).
Youth culture - again, both as a protest against state-controlled culture (e.g. rock music before it became co-opted), and in terms of the state's attempts to control/inspire young people (e.g. the Virgin Lands campaign)
Urbanisation - a major development in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev periods that is often overlooked in its significance for social-cultural change.
These are just a few, very rough, thoughts. Do let me know how your plans progress.
Best wishes
Wendy