Department of Slavonic Studies
Resistance in Russia and Eastern Europe
Over the course of the Academic Year 2012-13, the Department of Slavonic Studies, in association with CamCREES (Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies), will present a series of lectures and presentations exploring the relationship between past and present conceptions of resistance in Russia and Eastern Europe.
11 October 2012: Resistance and Imagination, Ms Masha Gessen. If you missed the lecture, you can view it here
25 October 2012: Resistance and Memory, Dr Polly Jones (University of Oxford): 'Although the late 1960s famously saw a shift towards prohibition of literature and historiography critical of the Stalinist past, and increasing persecution of its writers, the same period also saw a renewed drive to revitalise party propaganda of the Bolshevik past, in which artistic literature and skilled writers were supposed to play a key, unique role in attracting and enthusing readers. One such enterprise was the 'Fiery Revolutionaries' series of biographies of revolutionary heroes published by the main political publisher of the Soviet Union (Gospolitizdat) from 1968 to 1991; my talk uses this series in order to complicate the conventional narrative of growing writer resistance and state repression in late socialism, by showing how the need for 'good' writers led in this case to more reciprocal negotiations over writers' 'rights', producing particular, more limited forms of writer resistance to state control'.
13 November 2012: Resistance and Madness, Dr Rebecca Reich (University of Cambridge):'What does it means to call someone, something or oneself 'mad' as an act of or reaction to resistance? This lecture explores the political subtexts of the rhetoric of madness through a case study of the Russian reception of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from the 1970s to the present day.
22 November 2012: Resistance and Solidarity, Dr Rory Finnin (University of Cambridge): 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' In this lecture, Rory Finnin argues that every organised movement of resistance is, at its core, a movement of solidarity. Exploring remarkable historical examples from Crimea, Uzbekistan and Manchuria by way of Ukraine, he considers the relationship between 'empathic solidarity' and successful movements of resistance.
24 January 2013: Resistance and Nationalism, Professor David Marples (University of Alberta): A discussion of the contrasting application of resistance theory to the situation in Belarus in two eras: under Nazi occupation during the Second World War; and under the current authoritarian regime of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. The modern state in many ways rests on the traditional theme of Partisan resistance to the occupant in harmony with the local population, based on principles of resistance enunciated initially by V.I. Lenin. But the victory achieved is identified with a collective Soviet identity that has undergone a metamorphosis in the independent state into modern-day civic nationalism that attempts to conceal another form of nationalist resistance: that of ethnic Belarusian anti-Soviet forces during the war, and the contemporary national opposition in the republic today, manifested most notably in the Belarusian Popular Front and the Young Front. Is it possible to reconcile these forms of state nationalism and their divided historical memory?
5 February 2013: Resistance and New Media, Dr Vlad Strukov (University of Leeds)
14 February 2013: Resistance and Textuality, Professor Ann Komaromi (University of Toronto): No one wrote as much as dissidents, said historian Alexander Daniel. We have most often treated Soviet dissidents in terms of their texts, and dissident texts have been classified as such based primarily on their content. A critical look at dissident textuality, however, reveals qualities that allow us to rethink the history of resistance in the late Soviet period. An examination of the qualities of the dissident text can also offer insights for an analysis of resistance today. I will use my research of Soviet dissidence as a starting point for critical consideration of examples of American and Russian resistance today. What is the impact of the greater repeatability and malleability of texts from samizdat to the digital age?
21 February 2013: Resistance and Conscience, Dr Philip Boobbyer (University of Kent): Soviet dissidents opposed to communism placed great emphasis on 'conscience'. They saw themselves as involved both in a campaign against state oppression and an existential struggle for moral survival. This lecture will address the origins and nature of this stress on conscience, and explore some of the philosophical and theological issues arising out of it. The ideas and strategies of figures like Vladimir Bukovsky, Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn will be considered. There will also be discussion of the interrogation experiences of Walter Ciszek, a Polish-American Jesuit priest who was imprisoned in the Lubyanka in the early 1940s.
7 March 2013: Resistance and Rights, Professor Benjamin Nathans (University of Pennsylvania): How and with what effects was the rhetoric of rights - the lingua franca of liberalism - deployed in an avowedly illiberal society like the Soviet Union? How do activists invoke rights in today’s Russia? This lecture will analyze continuities and ruptures in the career of civil and human rights as a mode of resistance from the period of “developed socialism” to the Putin era.
25 April 2013: Resistance and Performance, Dr John Freedman (Writer,Ttranslator, Critic, and Scholar of Russian theatre): Political resistance and social commentary are deeply ingrained in the Russian theatre tradition. Rarely, however, have they been as open and obvious as in recent years. Throughout the Soviet period (and Imperial era) theatre artists "spoke the truth" by way of metaphor and implication. This tended to remain true even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when artists, who achieved new freedoms, were more intent on creating new kinds of art than on speaking about social ills. But in one of the biggest breaks with tradition in the history of Russian theatre, some writers, directors and actors are currently becoming extremely outspoken in their works. This discussion will focus on current developments, putting them into a historical context.
2 May 2013: Resistance and Gender, Dr Olesya Khromeychuk (University of Cambridge): This talk discusses what constitutes a nationalist resistance and why it is crucial to adopt a gender-sensitive analysis of this type of movement. The talk examines the case of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). It employs gender as a lens through which to examine the organisations in question, and sees it as a determinant of the development of the Ukrainian nationalist resistance. The talk also explores the representation of Ukrainian nationalist resistance in particular and gender roles in general in contemporary Ukrainian society.
Deparmtent of Slavonic Studies Public Lectures and Events
