Turning times: Russia and Germany, 1980 – 2000”: a joint course organized by the Department of History and Humboldt University

In the first weeks of May and June the Department of History, Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg and  Humboldt University in Berlin will organize a joint course “Turning times: Russia and Germany, 1980 – 2000” for students from both Universities.

The period of 1980s -2000s reveals turning points in global history of the 20^th century, symbolizing the end of the Cold War and the collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe what altered political, national and social maps of Europe. In these turbulent years Russia and Germany experienced the most radical changes having faced the problems of national unification, rapid but frequently tortuous transformations of political and economic regimes, various social crises and effects. Neither the way from divided state to united Germany, nor the transition from socialism to capitalism in Russia appeared to be straight and well-managed. Considering these issues as long-lasting and non-linear processes rather than as fixed events, the course aims to explore their internal roots and external influences, define the main actors, factors, strategies  and fields of changes, various political, social and cultural effects they made and to trace controversies of contemporary narratives on the recent pasts both in Germany and in Russia.

The course will consist of a series of workshops, discussions with experts and participants of past events, visits to contemporary memory sites. The first part of the course will take place in Berlin, from May 1 to May 8, where participants will discuss the history of unification of Germany and tensions between different contemporary narratives on its recent past. The discussion will be continued in the beginning of June in St. Petersburg, where the students will explore political, social and cultural transformations in Russia in 1980s-2000s with a special focus on urban space of Leningrad/ St. Petersburg.

The course is organized by Ekaterina Kalemeneva, a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the Department of History, and Kerstin Bischl from the Department of the History of Eastern Europe at Humboldt University in Berlin, with support of prof. Dietmar Wulff, Associate Professor at the Department of History, HSE in St. Petersburg and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).