SUGGESTED READINGS for Phd QUALIFYING EXAM in SOVIET HISTORY

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

SUGGESTED READINGS for Phd QUALIFYING EXAM in SOVIET HISTORY Benjamin Nathans University of Pennsylvania Department of History SUGGESTED READINGS FOR PhD QUALIFYING EXAM IN SOVIET HISTORY Note to users: this bibliography is meant to serve as a resource for graduate students compiling reading lists in preparation for their PhD oral exam in the field of Soviet history. It does not pretend to be comprehensive, especially as regards journal articles. Nor does it reflect an expectation that the prepared student will have read everything listed below (which would be virtually impossible). Rather, it is a starting point from which to pick and choose, and upon which to build. The list consists of three groups of works: 1. those designed to help orient you on the macro and micro levels 2. those organized according to specific periods of Soviet history 3. those organized according to specific themes There is some overlap between groups 2 and 3. Within each sub-topic, works are listed alphabetically by author’s last name. You can move from section to section by searching for the next asterix (*). My goal has been to list the most relevant and up-to-date works as of 2009 in the major European languages. Inevitably, there will be lacunae, errors, and typos. I would appreciate having these brought to my attention so that I can improve future editions of this list: [email protected] Happy hunting. BN Nathans/Soviet Field/p.2 ORIENTATION: Reference Works Atlases Overviews of Soviet History, 20th-Century Russia, Socialism/Communism State of the Field CHRONOLOGICAL UNITS: Pre-Revolutionary Period First World War, 1914–18 Revolutionary Era, 1917–18 War Communism and Civil War, 1918–21 Interwar Era, 1921-1939 Second World War, 1939–45 Late Stalin Era, 1945-53 Developed Socialism, 1953–85 Gorbachev Era, 1985-91 Longitudinal Studies of Specific Topics THEMATIC UNITS: Communist Party Demography Economy Law and Legality Religion, Atheism, and Secularization Industrialization and Workers Agriculture and Peasants Women and Gender Gulag The USSR and the World Natural Science and Technology Culture and the Intelligentsia Nationalities Memory Biographies Nathans/Soviet Field/p.3 O R I E N T A T I O N *REFERENCE WORKS Acton, Edward, et al. Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997). Afiani, V. Iu. Rossiia. Khronika osnovnykh sobytii. IX-XX veka (Moscow: Rosspen, 2002). De Boer, S. P. et al., eds. Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in the Soviet Union, 1956-1975 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982). Brown, Archie, Michael Kaser, and Gerald S. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Brune, Lester H., ed. Chronology of the Cold War, 1917-1992 (New York: Routledge, 2006). Clarke, Roger A., and Dubravko J.I. Matko. Soviet Economic Facts, 1917-1981 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983). Corten, Irina. Vocabulary of Soviet Society and Culture: A Selected Guide to Russian Words, Idioms, and Expressions of the Post-Stalin Era, 1953-1991 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992). Crowley, Edward L., ed. The Soviet Diplomatic Corps, 1917-1967 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1970). Feldbrugge, F.J.M., G. P. van den Berg, eds. Encyclopedia of Soviet Law (Hingham, Mass.: M. Nijhoff Publishers, 1985). Hellman, Manfred, et al., eds. Handbuch der Geschichte Russlands (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1976- 2004). Bd. 3: 1856-1945, von den autokratischen Reformen zum Sowjetstaat. Erster Halbband (1983); Zweiter Halbband (1992). Bd. 5: 1945-1991, vom Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs bis zum Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion. Erster Halbband (2002); Zweiter Halbband (2004). Hundert, Gershon, ed. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe 2 vols. (New Haven, 2008). Kasack, Wolfgang, ed. Dictionary of Russian Literature Since 1917 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). Kernig, Claus Dieter, ed. Marxism, Communism and Western Society. 8 vols. (New York, 1972-73). Nathans/Soviet Field/p.4 Kubijovyč, Volodymyr, ed. Encyclopedia of Ukraine 5 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984- 93) Mawdsley, Evan and Stephen White, eds. The Soviet Elite from Lenin to Gorbachev: The Central Committee and its Members (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) [Also available online at http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.3/0198297386.] McCauley, Martin. Who’s Who in Russia Since 1900 (New York: Routledge, 1997). Millar, James R. ed. Encyclopedia of Russian History. 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2004). Mokienko, V. M. and T. G. Nikitina. Tolkovyi slovar’ iazyka Sovdepii (St. Petersburg: Folio-press, 1998). Paxton, John, ed. Encyclopedia of Russian History: From the Christianization of Kiev to the Break-up of the U.S.S.R. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1993). Pockney, B. P. Soviet Statistics since 1950 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991). Prokhorov, A. M., ed. Bolshaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 3rd ed. 30 vols. (Moscow, 1969-78). Raymond, Boris and Paul Duffy. Historical Dictionary of Russia (Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press 1998). Shukman, Harold. Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution (Cambridge, Mass, 1994). Schulz, Heinrich E. et al., eds. Who Was Who in the USSR: A Biographic Directory Containing 5,015 Biographies of Prominent Soviet Historical Personalities (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1972). Schulz-Torge, Ulrich-Joachim, ed. Who Was Who in the Soviet Union: A Biographical Dictionary of More than 4,600 Leading Officials from the Central Apparatus and the Republics to 1991 (Munich and New York: K.G. Saur, 1992). Terras, Victor, ed. Handbook of Russian Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). Tucker, Spencer C., ed. Encyclopedia of the Cold War: A Political, Social, and Military History 5 vols. (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008). Vronskaya, Jeanne and Vladimir Chuguev. Biographical Dictionary of the Former Soviet Union. Prominent People in all Fields from 1917 to the Present (London: Bowker-Saur, 1992). Van Dijk, Ruud, ed. Encyclopedia of the Cold War 2 vols. (New York: Routledge, 2008). Weber, Harry, B., ed. Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet Literature 10 vols. (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1977- ). Wieczynski, Joseph L., ed. Modern Encyclopedia of Russian, Soviet, and Eurasian History 60 vols. (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1976). Nathans/Soviet Field/p.5 *ATLASES Channon, John and Robert Hudson. The Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia (New York: Viking, 1995). Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of Russian History, 4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2007). Milner-Gulland, Robin and Nikolai Dejevsky. Cultural Atlas of Russia and the Soviet Union (New York: Checkmark Books, 1998). Swift, John. The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the Cold War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). *OVERVIEWS OF SOVIET HISTORY, 20TH-CENTURY RUSSIA, SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM Andrle, Vladimir. A Social History of Twentieth-Century Russia (London: Edward Arnold, 1994). Brown, Archie. The Rise and Fall of Communism (New York: Ecco, 2009). Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Scribner, 1989). Bunce, Valerie. Subversive Institutions: The Design and Destruction of Socialism and the State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Courtois, Stéphane, et al. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). Responses: Horst Moeller, ed., Der Rote Holocaust und die Deutschen: Die Debatte um das “Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus” (Munich and Zurich: Piper, 1999). Pierre Rigoulot and Ilios Yannakakis, eds., Un pavé dans l’histoire: Le débat français sur Le Livre noir du communisme (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1998). Stefan Kroitsberger [Creuzberger] et al., eds. Kommunizm, terror, chelovek: diskussionnye stat’i na temu "Chernoi knigi kommunizma" (Kiev Izd-vo "Optima", 2001). Exchange over Das Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus in Die Zeit: nos. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 (June-July 1998). Andrzej Paczkowski, “The Storm over The Black Book,” Wilson Quarterly (Spring 2001), 28-34. Martin Malia. “The Lesser Evil? Obstacles to Comparing the Holocaust and the Gulag even after the Opening of the Soviet Archives,” Times Literary Supplement (March 27, 1998):3-4. Nathans/Soviet Field/p.6 Freeze, Gregory, ed. Russia: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Furet, Francois. The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) [French original: Le Passé d'une illusion: Essai sur l'idée communiste au XXe siècle, 1996]. Gellately, Robert. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). Hildermeier, Manfred. Geschichte der Sowjetunion, 1917-1991: Entstehung und Niedergang des ersten sozialistischen Staates (Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1998). Hoffmann, David, and Yanni Kotsonis, eds. Russian Modernity: Politics, Knowledge, Practices (London: Macmillan, 2000). Hosking, Geoffrey. The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). Joravsky, David. “Communism in Historical Perspective,” American Historical Review 99/3 (June 1994):837-57. Jowitt, Ken. New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Kenez, Peter. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End [2nd edition] (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Laqueur, Walter. The Dream That Failed: Reflections on Soviet Union (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Lewin,
Recommended publications
  • Exorcising Stalin's Ghost
    TURNING BACK TOTALITARIANISM: Exorcising Stalin’s Ghost Matthew R. Newton The Evergreen State College N e w t o n | 1 "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." --George Orwell The death of Joseph Stalin left the Soviet Union in a state of dynastic confusion, and the most repressive elements of the society he established remained. After Nikita Khrushchev secured power in the mid-1950s, he embarked on a campaign to vanquish these elements. While boldly denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality and individual authority in his ‘Secret Speech’ of 1956, he failed to address the problems of a system that allowed Stalin to take power and empowered legions of Stalin-enablers. Khrushchev’s problem was complex in that he wanted to appease the entire Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 and yet legitimize his position of power. The level of embeddedness of Stalinism in the Soviet Union was the biggest obstacle for Khrushchev. Characterized with the “permanent” infrastructure of the Soviet Union, Stalin’s autocratic rule was intertwined with virtually all aspects of Soviet life. These aspects can be broken down into four elements: Stalin’s status as an absolute champion of Communism, and his cult of personality; the enormous amount of propaganda in all forms that underlined Stalin as the “protector” of the Soviet Union during threat and impact of foreign war, and the censorship of any content that was not aligned with this mindset; the necessity and place of the Gulag prison camp in the Soviet economy, and how it sustained itself; and the transformation of Soviet society into something horrifically uniform and populated with citizens whom were universally fearful of arrest and arbitrary repression.
    [Show full text]
  • Boris Pasternak - Poems
    Classic Poetry Series Boris Pasternak - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Boris Pasternak(10 February 1890 - 30 May 1960) Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language. Furthermore, Pasternak's theatrical translations of Goethe, Schiller, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and William Shakespeare remain deeply popular with Russian audiences. Outside Russia, Pasternak is best known for authoring Doctor Zhivago, a novel which spans the last years of Czarist Russia and the earliest days of the Soviet Union. Banned in the USSR, Doctor Zhivago was smuggled to Milan and published in 1957. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year, an event which both humiliated and enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the midst of a massive campaign against him by both the KGB and the Union of Soviet Writers, Pasternak reluctantly agreed to decline the Prize. In his resignation letter to the Nobel Committee, Pasternak stated the reaction of the Soviet State was the only reason for his decision. By the time of his death from lung cancer in 1960, the campaign against Pasternak had severely damaged the international credibility of the U.S.S.R. He remains a major figure in Russian literature to this day. Furthermore, tactics pioneered by Pasternak were later continued, expanded, and refined by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other Soviet dissidents. <b>Early Life</b> Pasternak was born in Moscow on 10 February, (Gregorian), 1890 (Julian 29 January) into a wealthy Russian Jewish family which had been received into the Russian Orthodox Church.
    [Show full text]
  • Russian History: a Brief Chronology (998-2000)
    Russian History: A Brief Chronology (998-2000) 1721 Sweden cedes the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea to Russia (Treaty of Nystad). In celebration, Peter’s title Kievan Russia is changed from tsar to Emperor of All Russia Abolition of the Patrarchate of Moscow. Religious authority passes to the Holy Synod and its Ober- prokuror, appointed by the tsar. 988 Conversion to Christianity 1722 Table of Ranks 1237-1240 Mongol Invasion 1723-25 The Persian Campaign. Persia cedes western and southern shores of the Caspian to Russia Muscovite Russia 1724 Russia’s Academy of Sciences is established 1725 Peter I dies on February 8 1380 The Battle of Kulikovo 1725-1727 Catherine I 1480 End of Mongol Rule 1727-1730 Peter II 1462-1505 Ivan III 1730-1740 Anne 1505-1533 Basil III 1740-1741 Ivan VI 1533-1584 Ivan the Terrible 1741-1762 Elizabeth 1584-98 Theodore 1744 Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst arrives in Russia and assumes the name of Grand Duchess 1598-1613 The Time of Troubles Catherine Alekseevna after her marriage to Grand Duke Peter (future Peter III) 1613-45 Michael Romanoff 1762 Peter III 1645-76 Alexis 1762 Following a successful coup d’etat in St. Petersburg 1672-82 Theodore during which Peter III is assassinated, Catherine is proclaimed Emress of All Russia Imperial Russia 1762-1796 Catherine the Great 1767 Nakaz (The Instruction) 1772-1795 Partitions of Poland 1682-1725 Peter I 1773-1774 Pugachev Rebellion 1689 The Streltsy Revolt and Suppression; End of Sophia’s Regency 1785 Charter to the Nobility 1695-96 The Azov Campaigns 1791 Establishment fo the Pale of Settlement (residential restrictions on Jews) in the parts of Poland with large 1697-98 Peter’s travels abroad (The Grand Embassy) Jewish populations, annexed to Russia in the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, and 1795) and in the 1698 The revolt and the final suppression of the Streltsy Black Sea liitoral annexed from Turkey.
    [Show full text]
  • Course Handbook
    SL12 Page 1 of 29 UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF SLAVONIC STUDIES PAPER SL12: SOCIALIST RUSSIA 1917-1991 HANDBOOK Daria Mattingly [email protected] SL12 Page 2 of 29 INTRODUCTION COURSE AIMS The course is designed to provide you with a thorough grounding in and advanced understanding of Russia’s social, political and economic history in the period under review and to prepare you for the exam, all the while fostering in you deep interest in Soviet history. BEFORE THE COURSE BEGINS Familiarise yourself with the general progression of Soviet history by reading through one or more of the following: Applebaum, A. Red Famine. Stalin's War on Ukraine (2017) Figes, Orlando Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 (2014) Hobsbawm, E. J. The Age of Extremes 1914-1991 (1994) Kenez, Peter A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (2006) Lovell, Stephen The Soviet Union: A Very Short Introduction (2009) Suny, Ronald Grigor The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (2010) Briefing meeting: There’ll be a meeting on the Wednesday before the first teaching day of Michaelmas. Check with the departmental secretary for time and venue. It’s essential that you attend and bring this handbook with you. COURSE STRUCTURE The course comprises four elements: lectures, seminars, supervisions and reading. Lectures: you’ll have sixteen lectures, eight in Michaelmas and eight in Lent. The lectures provide an introduction to and overview of the course, but no more. It’s important to understand that the lectures alone won’t enable you to cover the course, nor will they by themselves prepare you for the exam.
    [Show full text]
  • OOB of the Russian Fleet (Kommersant, 2008)
    The Entire Russian Fleet - Kommersant Moscow 21/03/08 09:18 $1 = 23.6781 RUR Moscow 28º F / -2º C €1 = 36.8739 RUR St.Petersburg 25º F / -4º C Search the Archives: >> Today is Mar. 21, 2008 11:14 AM (GMT +0300) Moscow Forum | Archive | Photo | Advertising | Subscribe | Search | PDA | RUS Politics Mar. 20, 2008 E-mail | Home The Entire Russian Fleet February 23rd is traditionally celebrated as the Soviet Army Day (now called the Homeland Defender’s Day), and few people remember that it is also the Day of Russia’s Navy. To compensate for this apparent injustice, Kommersant Vlast analytical weekly has compiled The Entire Russian Fleet directory. It is especially topical since even Russia’s Commander-in-Chief compared himself to a slave on the galleys a week ago. The directory lists all 238 battle ships and submarines of Russia’s Naval Fleet, with their board numbers, year of entering service, name and rank of their commanders. It also contains the data telling to which unit a ship or a submarine belongs. For first-class ships, there are schemes and tactic-technical characteristics. So detailed data on all Russian Navy vessels, from missile cruisers to base type trawlers, is for the first time compiled in one directory, making it unique in the range and amount of information it covers. The Entire Russian Fleet carries on the series of publications devoted to Russia’s armed forces. Vlast has already published similar directories about the Russian Army (#17-18 in 2002, #18 in 2003, and #7 in 2005) and Russia’s military bases (#19 in 2007).
    [Show full text]
  • History As a Means of Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the North Caucasus/Chechnya by Cecile Druey
    History as a Means of Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the North Caucasus/Chechnya by Cecile Druey Starting from the example of the post-Soviet space, this article is interested in how conflicts are caused by – or result in – tensions between groups promot- ing different types and versions of historical memory. In the neo-authoritari- an, (post-) conflict setting of Chechnya, Jan Assman’s concept of cultural and communicative memory offers an interesting entry point to analyse the differ- ent types and levels of conflict, between the Chechens and Moscow, and within society in Chechnya proper. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the nationalisation of historiography in the 1990s, the new elites of Chechnya formulated local alternatives to the dominant Russian (and Soviet) narrative of the past. During the second war in Chechnya in the early 2000s, and with the strengthening of authoritarianism under the Kadyrov regime, the formerly open conflict with Moscow was again pushed underground. Ramzan Kadyrov’s instrumentalisation of history as a means to legitimise his cult of the Kadyrov family and the political choice for Moscow, that is, for Vladimir Putin, plays an important role in fuelling these grievances. Civil society, and expecially young people are an important actor in this conflict between official (or cultural) and popular (or communicative) forms of historical memory – a new conflict that is smouldering within the Chechen society, only waiting to eventually break out. Keywords: Communicative Memory, Cult of Personality. Post-Soviet Space, Memory Conflicts, Chechnya, Cultural Memory, Introduction The newly-gained independence or aspirations for autonomy and self-determi- - nation borne out of the collapse of the Soviet Union have put in motion the redefi nition of national and ethnic identities, which has often resulted in armed conflicts createbetween an minority ongoing riskgroups of re-escalation.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Spring 2012 Prof. Jochen Hellbeck [email protected] Van Dyck Hall 002F Office Hours: M 3:30-5:00 and by Appointment Hi
    Spring 2012 Prof. Jochen Hellbeck [email protected] Van Dyck Hall 002F Office hours: M 3:30-5:00 and by appointment History 510:375 -- 20 th Century Russia (M/W 6:10-7:30 CA A4) The history of 20 th century Russia, as well as the world, was decisively shaped by the Revolution of 1917 and the Soviet experiment. For much of the century the Soviet Union represented the alternative to the West. When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917 they were committed to remake the country and its people according to their socialist vision. This course explores the effects of the Soviet project—rapid modernization and ideological transformation—on a largely agrarian, “backward” society. We will consider the hopes and ideals generated by the search for a new and better world, and we will address the violence and devastation caused by the pursuit of utopian politics. Later parts of the course will trace the gradual erosion of Communist ideology in the wake of Stalin's death and follow the regime’s crisis until the spectacular breakup of the empire in 1991. Throughout the course, we will emphasize how the revolution was experienced by a range of people – Russians and non-Russians; men and women; artists and intellectuals, but also workers, soldiers, and peasants – and what it meant for them to live in the Soviet system in its different phases. To convey this perspective, the reading material includes a wide selection of personal accounts, fiction, artwork, films, which will be complemented by scholarly analyses. For a fuller statement of the learning goals pursued in this class, see More generally, see the History department statement on undergraduate learning goals: http://history.rutgers.edu/undergraduate/learning-goals The Communist age is now over.
    [Show full text]
  • The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Legacies
    1 The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Legacies Vladimir Tismaneanu The revolutions of 1989 were, no matter how one judges their nature, a true world-historical event, in the Hegelian sense: they established a historical cleavage (only to some extent conventional) between the world before and after 89. During that year, what appeared to be an immutable, ostensibly indestructible system collapsed with breath-taking alacrity. And this happened not because of external blows (although external pressure did matter), as in the case of Nazi Germany, but as a consequence of the development of insuperable inner tensions. The Leninist systems were terminally sick, and the disease affected first and foremost their capacity for self-regeneration. After decades of toying with the ideas of intrasystemic reforms (“institutional amphibiousness”, as it were, to use X. L. Ding’s concept, as developed by Archie Brown in his writings on Gorbachev and Gorbachevism), it had become clear that communism did not have the resources for readjustment and that the solution lay not within but outside, and even against, the existing order.1 The importance of these revolutions cannot therefore be overestimated: they represent the triumph of civic dignity and political morality over ideological monism, bureaucratic cynicism and police dictatorship.2 Rooted in an individualistic concept of freedom, programmatically skeptical of all ideological blueprints for social engineering, these revolutions were, at least in their first stage, liberal and non-utopian.3 The fact that 1 See Archie Brown, Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 157-189. In this paper I elaborate upon and revisit the main ideas I put them forward in my introduction to Vladimir Tismaneanu, ed., The Revolutions of 1989 (London and New York: Routledge, 1999) as well as in my book Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel (New York: Free Press, 1992; revised and expanded paperback, with new afterword, Free Press, 1993).
    [Show full text]
  • Eurr 4203/5203 and Hist 4603/5603 Imperial and Soviet Russia Wed 8:35-11:25, Dunton Tower 1006
    Eurr 4203/5203 and Hist 4603/5603 Imperial and Soviet Russia Wed 8:35-11:25, Dunton Tower 1006 Dr. Johannes Remy Winter 2014 Office: 3314 River Building e-mail: [email protected] Office Hours: Wednesday 3:00-4:00p.m. Phone: To be announced This course will analyze fundamental political, social, and cultural changes across the lands of the Russian Empire and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This seminar course will focus on major topics in the history and historiography of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Themes to be explored include political culture, empire and nationality questions, socialism, revolution, terror, class and gender. In the Napoleonic wars, Russia gained greater international prestige and influence than it had ever before. However, it was evident for many educated Russians that their country was “backward” compared to the Western Europe in its social and political system and economic performance. Russia retained serfdom longer than any other European country, until 1861, and the citizens gained representative bodies with legislative prerogatives only in 1905-1906, after all the other European countries except the Ottoman Empire. Many educated people lost their trust in the government and adopted radical, leftist and revolutionary ideologies. Even after the abolition of serfdom, the relations between peasants and noble landowners contained elements of antagonism. Industrialization began in the 1880s and brought additional problems, since radical intelligentsia managed to establish connections with discontented workers. In the course of the nineteenth century, the traditional policy of co-operation with local elites of ethnic minorities was challenged by both Russian and minority nationalisms.
    [Show full text]
  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    SPECIAL REPORT AMERICA, WE EG YOU TO INTERFER by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn ARTHUR R/\OTKE PRESIDENT lhe Cincinnati Air Conditioning Co. • CHURCH LEAGUE OF AMERICA 422 NORTH PROSPECT STREET WHEATON, ILLINOIS 60187 AUGUST 1975 . First Printing August 1975 Second Printing October 1975 INTRODUCTION The Church League of America believes it is imperative that the two major addresses which Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made re­ cently in Washington, D.C., and in New York City under the spon­ sorship of AFL-CIO be distributed as widely as possible across the nation and be digested by every American who has one grain of common sense left in his brain, and one spark of patriotism left in his soul, that each one communicate these two messages to every­ one who lives within the same block in his community, and get others to do the same, so that Solzhenitsyn:'s warnings may be spread to millions across America. This warning must shake our nation out of its lethargy until its teeth rattle and bring about a change in our present disastrous national policy of detente; and give hope to the millions of enslaved behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains as America rises and says: "We oppose Communism in all of its forms and devices and will not give one cent or one speck of technological know-how to any Communist nation from this momenton. We will re-assume the anti-Communist leadership of the Free World re­ gardless of the hypocritical critics, the cowards and the mentally sick intelligensia!" 'America, We Beg You to Interfere' by Aleksandr I.
    [Show full text]
  • War and Rape, Germany 1945
    Lees-Knowles Lectures Cambridge 2002-3 Antony Beevor 2. War and Rape, Germany 1945 „Red Army soldiers don't believe in “individual liaisons” with German women‟, wrote the playwright Zakhar Agranenko in his diary when serving as an officer of marine infantry in East Prussia. „Nine, ten, twelve men at a time - they rape them on a collective basis‟. The Soviet armies advancing into East Prussia in January 1945, in huge, long columns were an extraordinary mixture of modern and mediaeval: tank troops in padded black helmets, Cossack cavalrymen on shaggy mounts with loot strapped to the saddle, Lend-Lease Studebakers and Dodges towing light field guns, and then a second echelon in horse- drawn carts. The variety of character among the soldiers was almost as great as their military equipment. There were freebooters who drank and raped quite shamelessly, and there were idealistic, austere Communists and members of the intelligentsia genuinely appalled by such behaviour. Beria and Stalin back in Moscow knew perfectly well what was going on from a number of detailed reports sent by generals commanding the NKVD rifle divisions in charge of rear area security. One stated that „many Germans declare that all German women in East Prussia who stayed behind were raped by Red Army soldiers‟. This opinion was presumably shared by the authorities, since if they had disagreed, they would have added the ritual formula: „This is a clear case of slander against the Red Army.‟ In fact numerous examples of gang rape were given in a number of other reports – „girls under eighteen and old women included‟.
    [Show full text]
  • Small State Autonomy in Hierarchical Regimes. the Case of Bulgaria in the German and Soviet Spheres of Influence 1933 – 1956
    Small State Autonomy in Hierarchical Regimes. The Case of Bulgaria in the German and Soviet Spheres of Influence 1933 – 1956 By Vera Asenova Submitted to Central European University Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisor: Prof. Julius Horváth Budapest, Hungary November 2013 Statement I hereby state that the thesis contains no materials accepted for any other degrees in any other institutions. The thesis contains no materials previously written and/or published by another person, except where appropriate acknowledgement is made in the form of bibliographical reference. Vera Asenova ………………... ii Abstract This thesis studies international cooperation between a small and a big state in the framework of administered international trade regimes. It discusses the short-term economic goals and long-term institutional effects of international rules on domestic politics of small states. A central concept is the concept of authority in hierarchical relations as defined by Lake, 2009. Authority is granted by the small state in the course of interaction with the hegemonic state, but authority is also utilized by the latter in order to attract small partners and to create positive expectations from cooperation. The main research question is how do small states trade their own authority for economic gains in relations with foreign governments and with local actors. This question is about the relationship between international and domestic hierarchies and the structural continuities that result from international cooperation. The contested relationship between foreign authority and domestic institutions is examined through the experience of Bulgaria under two different international trade regimes – the German economic sphere in the 1930’s and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) in the early 1950’s.
    [Show full text]