Newsletter No.29, July 2020

Contents President's President’s Report 1

Book Review 2 Report News of the field 2-3 Dear BASEES members,

Interview: Mark Harrison 4 I hope this Newsletter finds you and your families safe and well. The last few months Publication announcment 5 have been a big challenge to our academic community. We left our campuses, ERC Spotlight 5 libraries, and archives abruptly: most of us moved back home and started to work remotely from box rooms, kitchen tables and bedrooms. I know that it hasn’t been College, Cambridge, that allowed us to Editorial information easy to juggle remote working with care provide full refunds to all registered and childcare commitments, worries about delegates, the association took a big Please send any news, vulnerable loved ones, the demands of financial hit. comments, or contributions starting your own school at home, and the to the editor, Ben Phillips challenges of procuring pasta and toilet When we cancelled BASEES 2020, we ([email protected]) paper in the early stages of the pandemic. anticipated welcoming delegates back at next year’s conference in Glasgow, Deadline for submissions Colleagues’ creativity, commitment and the first BASEES conference to be held high spirits notwithstanding, it is evident in Scotland. Planning for the move had for the July newsletter that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused progressed very well, but in consultation is 13 November 2020. major disruption to our sector. Graduate with our partners at CEES, University of students and post-docs working on Glasgow over the last two months, we had Extracts may be reproduced time-limited programmes/projects have to make the difficult decision to postpone with the permission of BASEES. been hit particularly hard. Severe travel this conference as well. The continuing restrictions continue to hamper research uncertainty caused by the pandemic, across regional and national boundaries the possibility of (institutional) travel and have brought most fieldwork to an restrictions and widespread cuts to travel Stay in touch abrupt halt. Without decisive action by allowances at many universities made the government, UKRI, and UUK, the planning for an event with an anticipated British Association pandemic will leave deep scars on the audience of 500 impossible. Continuing for Slavonic and higher education sector in the UK. This is the preparations for Glasgow 2021 under East European Studies why BASEES joined 48 other professional the current circumstances would also have academic associations in calling for a exposed the association to unacceptably 'New Deal For Higher Education' to ensure high financial risk. The Covid-19 crisis has @BASEES UK tertiary institutions remain at the thus forced us to reschedule the major forefront of global research, education BASEES events for the next five years. The www.basees.org and innovation. BASEES has taken its own next annual conference will take place action to address the crisis: in May the back at Robinson College, Cambridge in Executive Committee decided to prioritise 2022, followed by Glasgow in 2023 and the support of postgraduates in all our Cambridge again in 2024. In 2025 BASEES R&D activities, while our postgraduate will not hold an annual conference as we grant scheme will now also welcome will be hosting the ICCEES World Congress applications for non-travel fieldwork in London in August. support, such as transcriptions. Although BASEES will not stop organising Unfortunately, the crisis has also affected scholarly events over the next two years, BASEES’ financial position. Thecancellation we will focus on smaller face-to-face, of the BASEES 2020 conference, only online and hybrid conferences and weeks before the event, came at a workshops. In September 2020 BASEES significant cost. Although at the time was supposed to hold the regional the UK Government was maintaining a conference ‘Globalising Eastern Europe business as usual stance, the organising – New Perspectives on Transregional committee came to the conclusion that Entanglements’ in collaboration with the the growing public health crisis made it Leibniz Science Campus ‘Eastern Europe impossible for us to hold a conference. – Global Area’ (EEGA) in Leipzig, Germany. Despite successfully negotiating a Unfortunately, this event has now also postponement agreement with Robinson been postponed: it will be moved to >>

1 • BASEES Newsletter • November 2013 BASEES Newsletter • July 2020 • 1 >> 21-24 April 2021 and there will be has a long way to go in terms of racial Book Review a further opportunity to submit paper equality, and BASEES is determined and panel proposals. In September to face up to its own shortcomings in 2020, a small-scale event will be held this area. Workshops and meetings Paul Robinson, Russian Conservatism. in Leipzig and it will be streamed had been scheduled at the 2020 Northern Illinois University Press, 2019. online. We will circulate further conference to provide an opportunity 300 pages. ISBN: 9781501747342. £33. information on the event via the to reflect critically on issues affecting Paul Robinson’s comprehensive and timely Bulletin, mailing list and social media ethnic and racial minorities in our Russian Conservatism locates contemporary in due course. community and our practice. Diversity Russian politics within the historical and inclusion are also core themes continuum of conservative thought. With a Two other events are currently of a strategic review of BASEES’ balanced, systematic approach, Robinson in planning. In May 2021, we will organisational structures and activities guides his reader through a complex and at organise a small conference with our which we will launch later this year. times contradictory set of beliefs from the partners at CEES Glasgow (dates and early 1800s to the present day, ultimately theme to be confirmed). BASEES will This review will involve consultation arriving at a rounded assessment of Russian also launch a new Study Group for with all key stakeholders and I am conservatism in the 21st century. Minority Histories, with an inaugural hopeful that it will help us build event to be held at Birkbeck, University a more diverse and welcoming Robinson defines Russian conservatism as an of London next spring. The group's association for students and scholars organic movement that is not against change, organisers are Olena Palko (Birkbeck, from BAME backgrounds. I very much but rather tries to guide change and allow University of London), and Samuel welcome members’ thoughts and it to unfold in accordance with Russia’s own Foster (University of East Anglia). input into this process: please feel free nature. A movement that might appear at For further information see below. to email me and to attend the next first to be retrospective in ethos is, he argues, Annual General Meeting on Tuesday, looking to its past for guidance to build the The new study group is timely, 1 September at 3-5pm. The meeting future, effecting a kind of ‘managed’ change since debates about the voices of will be held virtually via Zoom: we will rooted in tradition. Robinson then focuses minorities in established historical circulate further information as to how his historical account on three aspects of narratives, discrimination and racism to participate in due course. conservative thought: cultural conservatism have dominated public discourse (which he explains as intrinsically linked since the murder of George Floyd. Matthias Neumann to the Orthodox faith as an expression of As I declared in a statement by the national identity and the embodiment of Russia’s opposition to the West), political BASEES Committee on the Black Lives conservatism (a desire to rule the country Matter movement, higher education in accordance with tradition, the ideal being autocracy) and social-economic conservatism, which grapples with the paradoxical desire to build a strong, competitive state while adhering to Russian traditions and today expresses itself through an anti-globalist stance. News of the field Through the following ten chapters, Robinson contextualises each major political period in conservative thought over the last 200 BASEES Study Group for for opportunities to collaborate and years and examines it from these three Minority Histories share and promote their research. If angles. He considers the Slavophiles, Official you are interested in joining, please Nationality, Pan-Slavism, Eurasianism, Stalin, 2021 will see the launch of an exciting get in touch with one of our present and ultimately arrives at post-Soviet Russia. new study group for those with an organisers, Olena Palko (o.palko@ Robinson builds a rich and thorough picture interest in minorities within the bbk.ac.uk) or Samuel Foster (Samuel. of each of these phases in conservative national and regional histories of [email protected]) with a two-sentence thought, which ultimately leads to fuller Central, Eastern and Southeastern synopsis outlining your research understanding of the political situation in Europe. The Study Group for Minority interests. contemporary Russia. Histories is open to scholars working in areas related to ethnic, cultural, Robinson is not inured to the inherent religious, linguistic, sexual and other In memoriam: paradoxes of Russian conservatism. minorities (from the late eighteenth Neil Cornwell Although the ideas that he tackles can at first century to the recent past) and looking appear oxymoronic (‘liberal conservativism’, 1942-2020 ‘revolutionary conservatism’ and ‘conservative modernisation’, for example), his measured Neil Cornwell, prose and the historical context he provides Emeritus Professor guides the reader through the most complex of Russian and Comparative Literature ideas. Aside from being one of the first at the University of Bristol, was a studies to describe Russian conservative major international specialist in his thought in such historical breadth, the major subject and a colleague and friend strength of Russian Conservatism is its for many years. After a short spell at clarity of thought, linear organisation, and NUU, Coleraine, he began lecturing in considered assessment of contemporary the Department of Slavonic Studies at Russian politics and its reliance, deliberate or Queen’s, Belfast, in 1973, mainly on otherwise, on the country’s conservative past. twentieth-century Russian Literature. Even at this early stage his preference Sarah Gear for the comparative approach to Department of Modern Languages literary studies was in evidence: >> and Cultures, University of Exeter

BASEES Newsletter • July 2020 • 2 News of the field

>> his first article, published in to reference works also includes The Quinquereme (2, 1979) was on ‘Themes Routledge Companion to Russian and Ideas in the works by V.F. Odoyevsky, Literature (2001) and his editorship (2000- Dostoyevsky and Mayakovsky’. Odoevsky 12) of the Russian Literature and Henry in particular, an influential Russian writer James sections of the online Literary and polymath largely neglected in both Encyclopedia. One of Neil’s most striking Russia and the West, was to become a capabilities was his detailed knowledge major critical pre-occupation for him. of Russian literature and its wealth of Neil tirelessly researched sources on criticism and theory. He was outstandingly Odoevsky, including those in Russian supportive of the research of other archives, producing first a PhD and then a scholars; many of those who knew him monograph (The Life, Times and Milieu of will have enjoyed his hospitality and good V.F. Odoyevsky, 1986) as well as a number company. He will be greatly missed. of essays. He can be said to have single- handedly revived interest in Odoevsky in Robert Reid both Russia and the West. Keele University The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia was Odoevsky was remarkable for his a continuation of E.H. Carr’s project to openness to European cultural influences The Alexander Nove Award for write a history of the Bolshevik revolution. and Neil’s interest in this comparativist Distinguished Scholarship Between 1950 and 1969 Carr published theme drew him to writers such as 14 volumes of his History of Soviet Russia, Pasternak and Nabokov in whose lives BASEES had planned to make an award covering the period from 1917 to 1929. To and work the relationship between via video link to R. W. Davies at the annual help with the final set of volumes, entitled Russia and the West was problematised conference in April: Mark Harrison, co- Foundations of a Planned Economy, in unique ways, and on both of whom he author of the latest Industrialisation of he recruited a co-author, the young wrote authoritative studies (Pasternak’s Soviet Russia volume, was going to pick economist R. W. Davies of the University Novel: Perspectives on Doctor Zhivago up the medal we were having forged for of Birmingham. Carr stepped back from [1986]; Vladimir Nabokov [1999]). Another the occasion. Alas none of this could take his project in 1929 citing the increasing writer whom Neil approached from this place and I was deprived of my chance to secrecy of the Soviet regime in the 1930s viewpoint was James Joyce. Perhaps Neil’s make a speech about the seven volumes and the lack of primary documentation as most ambitious comparative study was at the annual dinner, in which I would his reason. Where Carr stopped, Davies his book on James Joyce (James Joyce and have expressed the hope that some young took up the work. The seven volumes of the Russians [1992]), in which he analysed economic historians would pick up the The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia cover both Joyce’s interest in the Russian baton to continue this project into the the period from 1929 to 1939: in what language and a variety of Russian cultural WWII/GPW years and onwards. This would must be a record, the project was funded figures linked with Joyce either by similarity be an extremely difficult act to follow, as is continuously by the Economic and Social or influence. obvious from the citation we composed to Research Council from 1973 to 2010. honour Bob’s effort (reproduced below). Neil was also interested in the use of We wish Bob and his co-authors health While the project continued, the world fantasy and the absurd in literature: his and happiness in the years ahead. changed. The Soviet Union opened up, long-standing interest in the Russian then collapsed. Its archives became absurdist Daniil Kharms led to a collection available to the world, solving the Judith Pallot of essays on the author, while two obstacle that had defeated Carr, and Christ Church College, Oxford monographs were devoted to The Literary Davies became a leading figure among Fantastic (1990) and The Absurd in “This special award is being made to many who made the Soviet state the Literature (2006) respectively. the seven-volume economic history The best documented authoritarian regime Industrialisation of Soviet Russia, which of modern times. The topics embraced Two other academic achievements of Neil’s has come to the end with the publication by the seven volumes include forced are particularly worthy of mention. One is of the seventh and final volume:The industrialisation and collectivisation, his foundation of the journal Irish Slavonic Soviet Economy and the Approach of War, famine, the emergence of the command Studies, which he edited from 1980-1986 1937-1939 (Palgrave, 2018). The pivotal system, the limited scope for reforms, and became an international publication role in the series has been played by R. mass killings and forced labour, the path featuring a substantial review section as W. (Bob) Davies (b. 1925), a mighty figure of consumption and living standards, the well as academic articles. Another is the in Soviet (Russian) and East European militarisation of the economy and war monumental Reference Guide to Russian Studies and a founding member of this preparations, and the character of Soviet Literature (1998) which he edited (with association, serving on the precursor economic growth and development.” Nicole Christian as associate editor) and NASEES committee from 1963-1977. The has since become the standard reference final volume of the series is co-authored by work for information on Russian writers, Mark Harrison, Oleg Khlevniuk & Stephen with information on 273 Russian writers G Wheatcroft (who also co-authored and nearly three hundred key works of volume 5). Russian literature. Neil’s contribution

BASEES Newsletter • July 20202019 • 3 Interview: Mark Harrison

The Newsletter speaks to Mark Harrison, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, about his recent memoir, There Was a Front, but Damned if We Knew Where: Moscow, 1972/73.

What made you want to write preference falsification. This did not seem few places were available, and I was this memoir? to have much to do with fluctuations in fortunate that my launching pad was an Anglo-Soviet relations. Soviet society was Oxford college. Nowadays most students One summer evening in the late 1990s, it was, not as we would have liked it to be, seem to have superb language skills and only a few years after the end of Soviet and we had to accommodate to it. The they go off and live in villages for months rule, I walked through central Moscow state exercised guardianship over history, or years, or they travel on their own by with the Swedish historian Lennart and this ruled out many fascinating lines train and plane across Russia’s regions, Samuelson. We looked into a bar that of research we might have pursued, given making their own connections with was crowded with happy, noisy twenty- the choice. As foreigners we enjoyed archives and institutes and finding their year-olds, something unthinkable only a many privileges, but could not make a own accommodation. I don’t really know decade earlier. Lennart turned to me and fuss without risking our positions and how they do it, and I wish I had been more snapped: “These young people. They don’t drawing negative attention to our friends like them. know what it’s like to live in a totalitarian and contacts. So, we all toned down our society!” Many years later the number of expressions of interest and spontaneous If I have any advice, it would be that a good people that recall everyday life in Europe’s reactions to what we encountered in way to stand out in a competitive world of last great police state is rapidly shrinking. Soviet life. adventurous and well qualified people is to My students, even those who come from have one more skill, and I tend to think the Russia, struggle to imagine a world without When I visit Russia today I am again most important thing to add to language instant communication and unregulated mindful that I should be careful about skills and knowing a lot about the world is information sharing. I began to feel that what I say and who I mix with, and should data skills. what I remembered, being increasingly avoid causing trouble for my Russian scarce, might also be of growing interest, colleagues and friends. Again the reason is if only for curiosity. So I decided to write not so much poor Anglo-Russian relations How has the Russian studies field down what I remembered. as the fact that Russia is once more an (very broadly defined) changed authoritarian state. It is worth adding that restrictions on everyday life in Russia since you were a graduate today are far less intrusive than under student? You describe in detail the ways Soviet rule. Soviet society was organized in in which Anglo-Soviet tensions in such a way that the KGB could look for and Several decades ago the field seemed to the 1970s put exchange students monitor anything out of the ordinary. The be tidily segmented by subdisciplines – in something of a bind. Do you same is not true of Russia today, even if economics, politics, history, literature, and so forth. Nowadays few people care about see any parallels with today’s the FSB would perhaps like it to be. maintaining disciplinary boundaries. This situation? is a positive thing. At one time I began to What advice would you give fear that the field had rather lost interest In his book Private Truth, Public Lies, the in economics and economic history. More economist Timur Kuran coined the phrase to graduate students doing recently I have become optimistic again. “preference falsification.” Economists research in Russia and the The force driving my optimism is that my tend to assume that preferences are former Soviet Union these days? discipline of economics has responded freely stated, but often what we express to the data explosion by becoming more is limited to what is thought to be socially I am reluctant to offer advice. Many applied and empirical, economists have acceptable. We hide our true thoughts graduate students that I have met in become more interested in history as to avoid disapproval or ridicule. This recent years have been far more self- a source of data over long periods, and can happen anywhere, but preference motivating, adventurous, and courageous Russians working in economics are turning falsification is much more intense in than I ever was. It may seem that I was back to the economic history of their own authoritarian societies where dissent and brave to go off and study in the Soviet country. Thus the widening scope for high- nonconformity are explicitly penalized. Union, but I wasn’t brave at all, I just quality economics and economic history is followed a bureaucratic process that was drawing new people into the field. As exchange students in the Soviet Union, highly organized and institutionalized. I we had to collude with the system of was also very lucky to be accepted: very

4 • BASEES Newsletter • November 2013 BASEES Newsletter • July 20202019 • 4 Publication announcement ECR Spotlight Russian in Plain English

Earlier this year (Newsletter no. 28, February 2020), I expressed serious concern about the huge gap between language teaching practitioners and applied linguistics researchers within The Newsletter speaks to to Caroline Ridler, UK Slavic Studies. Many students appear to be taught in more or less a first-year PhD student at the University of the same way they were 50 years ago. Such teaching methods may not Nottingham working on late Soviet rock music. necessarily be the most effective or learner-friendly, leading to discouraged students and a rising drop-out rate (up How did you end up in the Tell us about your current to 33% in Year 1, according to Isurin, Russian/Slavic Studies field? research. 2013, RLJ). With the declining popularity of Slavic and Russian language At school, I had the opportunity to My PhD focusses on the Soviet rock degrees, letting this tendency take its study GCSE Russian. I was passionate musician Viktor Tsoi, who died in 1991 course may prove costly for all of us. about languages and could not resist and became a cult hero throughout the the challenge: I was fascinated by the Soviet Union and post-Soviet world. I Although most BASEES members do not research language pedagogy, many alphabet, grammar, and culture. Russian trace his rise to fame in the late 1980s of us do teach language courses at was not offered at my sixth form, but I was in the context of the rapid cultural and some point in our careers (the more able to continue studying Russian ab initio political changes of Gorbachev’s glasnost so these days with departmental alongside French as part of the Modern and perestroika. I aim to show that rock budgets tight). Moreover, first- and Languages BA at Durham University. The music did not make a wholesale transition second-year language courses supply course at Durham enabled me to explore from ‘underground’ to ‘above ground’, the majority of enrolments for more many aspects of Russian culture – one of but instead that Tsoi’s example illustrates advanced levels, as well as candidates which was the St Petersburg underground how many rock musicians straddled for postgraduate research. How we rock scene. Since I knew I wanted to ‘countercultural’ and ‘mainstream’ teach students at these language levels take my studies in Russian further, I definitions in the late 1980s. My research is thus becoming considerably more applied to the MSt in Modern Languages examines the process of mythmaking important than has traditionally been at the University of Oxford, where my which shaped Tsoi’s image and legacy – assumed. master’s dissertation (supervised by his reputation as ‘authentic’ and ‘sincere’ Polly Jones) focussed on the Soviet rock contributed to his popularity amongst I have therefore produced an musician Viktor Tsoi. This led to a PhD perestroika-era youth – and question how innovative textbook, underpinned on Viktor Tsoi, Leningrad rock poetry, far various myths, such as Tsoi as a ‘rock- by theories of cognitive processing, and the cultural politics of glasnost at the poet’ and as the ‘last hero’ of the Soviet language acquisition and University of Nottingham. The project is rock underground, coincide with his actual psycholinguistics, that aims to teach supervised by Polly McMichael (a world biography. Russian to complete beginners as expert on Soviet rock music) and Claire effectively as possible. It is designed Shaw at the University of Warwick, and is to help learners understand the logic funded by the Midlands4Cities DTP (AHRC). behind the Russian sound system What are the challenges facing and spelling, enabling them to start PhD students at the moment? reading independently within a very short period of time by activating their What are the highlights of your The coronavirus pandemic has been cognitive processing of letter-sound career to date? profoundly challenging for universities correspondences in special exercises. and has hit PhD students and early It also helps them understand the I am in the first year of my PhD, but career researchers particularly hard. With basic principles of the Russian I have already had some fantastic Teaching Affiliate budgets cut, many PhD inflection system, teaching them to opportunities to travel and share my students including myself will not have use the endings in their speech and research. In December last year, I went the opportunity to gain crucial teaching enabling them to produce a range of to Bremen to present a paper at the experience next year. This follows on from independent sentences after just 20 Colloquium of East(-Central) European many years of undervaluing the work of hours of classroom time. Speaking History at the Research Centre for East PhD students whose roles as teaching staff activities support every small chunk European Studies (University of Bremen). have become casualised, precarious and of theory which is introduced. The It was exciting to connect with scholars underpaid. Many PhD students also fear materials on which the book is based in Russian and Slavonic Studies outside for their futures in academia as job cuts, have been piloted with several groups, the UK and to access rare materials in increased workloads, and the move to delivering extremely positive results. the Centre’s archives, including original online teaching (accelerated by Covid-19) copies of Roksi (Leningrad underground suggest that there will be fewer future The book, called Russian in Plain rock) samizdat. In February, I presented at research and teaching positions. More English, is published by Routledge, and is ready for pre-ordering with free the New Russias festival at the University imminently, researchers are struggling delivery here. If you have questions, of Manchester, where I had the chance to complete (or needing to completely please email me on either n.v.parker@ to attend unique cultural performances, alter) their projects, with libraries shut and leeds.ac.uk or romashka1996@hotmail. including concerts from Russian rock research trips postponed. com – your comments and suggestions and pop bands Motorama and Pompeya, are really appreciated. documentary film showings and the first English-language performance of Vladimir Natalia V. Parker Vysotsky’s songs.

BASEES Newsletter • July 2020 • 5