Society and Politics in the Time of Imperial Crisis

August 23, 2014. The Department of History of Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg held the first workshop within the framework of the international research project “Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism.” Professor Ronald Suny (University of Michigan and HSE-SPb) and Professor Alexander Semyonov (HSE-SPb) chaired the workshop that was focused on “Society and Politics in the Time of Imperial Crisis.”

The meeting opened the series of workshops and seminars of the 3 year international research project aimed at comparative exploration of the historical experience of the Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union from the prism of ideology of imperial regime and different strategies of management of diversity.









Program of the seminar:

Anton Kotenko. The Ukrainian Project in Search of National Space, 1861-1914? 1918? 1923?

 Anton Kotenko presented a project of his book The Ukrainian Project in Search of National Space, 1861-1914whichdescribes the idea of Ukrainian national territorialisation in the second half of the 19^th –beginning of the 20^th century. The author emphasized that the focus of his work was on the process of space construction, which in his opinion included two main parts: the construction of the concept of the Ukrainian national space and spread of the concept of the Ukranian national space in various social layers. 

Evgeniy Manzhurin. Visions of the Soviet City in Soviet Territorial Emblems. 

Yana Kitaeva. The Diaries of Teimuraz G. Stepanov-Mamaladze

Today we cannot even imagine the fall of the Berlin Wall, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the end of the Cold War without a Hollywood smile of Eduard Shevardnadze. This "new man" in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the main moving force behind the dramatic change of the Soviet foreign policy. Not everyone knows that during his work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Edward Shevardnadze had a personal aide and speechwriter Teimuraz G. Stepanov-Mamaladze. Stepanov-Mamaladze kept detailed diaries describing everything that happened to him and his boss from 1985 to 1991. In these diaries the aide gave a personal description of high diplomatic meetings and reproduced conversations with his boss that happened behind the closed doors of diplomatic venues. He also describes Shevarnadze’s relationship with M. Gorbachev and other political leaders from around the world. The diaries open the window on the central question of the history of Perestroika: how “new people” in the Communist party and Soviet government overcame the routine of the Soviet bureaucracy and changed the political course of a super-power.

Sandrine Mayoraz. Jewish Worker’s Disturbances in the North-Western Part of the Pale of Settlement between 1881-1907.