Podcasts about stalinization

In this episode, we explore the Mingrelian Affair, a significant but lesser-known episode in Soviet history during the early 1950s, marked by political purges targeting Georgian officials of Mingrelian ethnicity. Centered around Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's trusted aide, the affair reflects the intense ethnic tensions and power struggles within Stalin's regime. Its implications ripple through the later de-Stalinization efforts, showcasing the complexities of Soviet governance and internal rivalries.

This Day in Legal History: Khrushchev at the HelmOn September 13, 1953, Nikita Khrushchev was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, marking a pivotal shift in Soviet leadership following the death of Joseph Stalin. Khrushchev's rise to power signaled a departure from the oppressive and brutal regime of Stalin, as he eventually denounced many of Stalin's crimes during his famous "Secret Speech" in 1956. This denouncement was part of Khrushchev's broader policy of de-Stalinization, which aimed to reduce the terror associated with Stalin's rule and promote a more moderate, reform-oriented government. Khrushchev's leadership saw significant changes both domestically and internationally. He pushed for economic reforms, introduced policies that relaxed censorship, and reduced the use of forced labor. On the global stage, Khrushchev's foreign policy was marked by intense Cold War tensions, including the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. His eventual mishandling of the crisis and other domestic challenges contributed to his ouster in 1964 by political rivals within the Soviet leadership.The legal element here is Khrushchev's role in de-Stalinization, which involved dismantling many of Stalin's legal policies of oppression, including the arbitrary imprisonment and execution of political opponents. His reforms reshaped the Soviet legal system by curbing the powers of the secret police and reducing the scale of political purges.Hogan Lovells is closing its offices in Poland, Australia, and South Africa as part of a strategic shift to focus on key markets like London, New York, California, Texas, and Washington, DC. This move will result in 123 layoffs, including lawyers and support staff. CEO Miguel Zaldivar explained the decision aligns with the firm's goal of becoming more financially integrated and reaching $3 billion in annual revenue. Hogan Lovells is following a trend of Big Law firms reducing their real estate footprints, with firms like Dechert, Armstrong Teasdale, and A&O Shearman also closing offices globally. Legal recruiter Jeffrey Lowe noted that international offices are particularly costly for U.S. firms, prompting many to reassess their presence in certain markets. The closures reflect a broader effort to free up capital to attract high-priced lateral talent, a trend expected to continue in the coming years.Hogan Lovells to Close Three Offices in ‘Strategic' Move (3)Norfolk Southern Corp. is seeking its seventh legal leader in as many years after firing Chief Legal Officer Nabanita Nag and CEO Alan Shaw due to a consensual relationship that violated company policy. This follows an internal investigation conducted by an outside law firm. Jason Morris, the company's vice president for law, has been named acting corporate secretary, though it is unclear if he will assume control of the legal department. Norfolk Southern has faced significant legal and regulatory challenges, including the costly East Palestine, Ohio train derailment in 2022, which has led to $2 billion in litigation and remediation expenses.Nag, who took over as legal chief in 2022, is the latest in a series of legal department leaders to leave Norfolk Southern. Her predecessors left for various reasons, including retirement and relocation due to the company's headquarters moving from Norfolk, Virginia to Atlanta. Norfolk Southern has reached large settlements related to the Ohio derailment, including $600 million to resolve lawsuits and $310 million for U.S. government claims. The company continues to deal with litigation over the incident, represented by WilmerHale and Dickie McCamey, and faces further scrutiny from investors following the disaster.Norfolk Southern Law Head's Ouster Continues Department TurnoverThe House has received a letter from the federal judiciary regarding a potential impeachment inquiry into former Alaska District Judge Joshua Kindred, who resigned after being found guilty of sexual misconduct and lying to investigators. The Ninth Circuit's Judicial Committee certified an impeachment inquiry into Kindred in July, citing his creation of a hostile work environment and an inappropriate relationship with a former law clerk. While Kindred resigned, a Senate conviction could bar him from future public office. Democratic Representative Hank Johnson praised the judiciary for taking the allegations seriously, but it remains unclear if the House will pursue the matter. Legal experts suggest Republicans may be reluctant to proceed, given that Kindred is no longer in office, similar to their stance during Trump's second impeachment trial. The last federal judge impeached and removed from office was G. Thomas Porteous in 2010.Meanwhile, scrutiny has increased on Kindred's past cases, with over 40 potentially involving conflicts of interest. Criminal defense lawyers in Alaska are exploring opportunities to overturn convictions related to Kindred's misconduct. Additionally, Kindred's former clerk has filed a whistleblower complaint, alleging retaliation by the Alaska U.S. Attorney's office after she reported the harassment.Ex-Alaska Judge's Potential Impeachment Moves to House (2)TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are facing a pivotal court hearing on Monday that could determine whether the app will be banned in the U.S. by January 19, 2025. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments in the legal challenge, which occurs as TikTok remains a key platform for political engagement during the 2024 presidential election. TikTok argues that the law mandating its sale or banning it violates free speech rights and is a drastic departure from the U.S. tradition of supporting an open internet. U.S. lawmakers passed the law, citing national security concerns over potential Chinese government access to American data. TikTok has claimed that divesting the app is unfeasible, and the case could end up before the Supreme Court. While the Biden administration wants Chinese ownership of TikTok to end, it is not pushing for an outright ban if the app's ownership issues are resolved. A decision is expected by December 6.TikTok faces crucial court hearing that could decide fate in US | ReutersThis week's closing theme is by Clara Wieck-Schumann. This week's closing theme honors the extraordinary Clara Schumann, one of the most influential figures in the world of 19th-century classical music, born on this day, September 13, in 1819. A virtuoso pianist, composer, and teacher, Clara Schumann's legacy extends far beyond her role as the wife of composer Robert Schumann. She was a musical prodigy who gave her first public concert at the age of nine, and over her long career, she toured extensively across Europe, earning widespread acclaim for her impeccable technique and profound musicality.Clara Schumann was also a gifted composer, though her work was often overshadowed by the social expectations of her time. One of her standout compositions is Scherzo No. 2 in C minor, Op. 14. Written in 1845, this piece exemplifies her command of the piano, featuring a powerful interplay of rhythmic vitality and lyrical expressiveness. The Scherzo No. 2 showcases Clara's deep understanding of Romantic aesthetics, with its dramatic contrasts and technical brilliance—a hallmark of her compositional style. The piece demands a high level of virtuosity, a reflection of her own skills as one of the greatest pianists of her era.Despite facing many personal challenges, including the early death of her husband and the pressure to provide for her family, Clara remained dedicated to her craft. She shaped the landscape of European concert life, championing the works of Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and other contemporary composers, while continuing to write and perform her own music.Clara Schumann's Scherzo No. 2 is a fitting tribute to her genius—its energetic and complex nature reflects her resilience and innovation in a time when female composers were seldom given their due recognition. As we listen to this remarkable piece, it's a reminder of her invaluable contributions to classical music, both as a composer and a performer, whose impact still resonates today. On her birthday, it's only right to celebrate Clara Schumann's enduring artistry and reflect on her place in music history. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Today I talked to Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his apprenticeship in Bucharest and discovered the social struggle and its repression at the age of fifteen within the Romanian Communist Party. In 1948, the Stalinist Gheorghiu-Dej, his mentor, having taken power, he took the opportunity to quickly climb the ranks of the party and the state. Installed in power in March 1965, Ceauşescu inherited the policy of his predecessor: avoiding de-Stalinization by playing the nationalist card. Its beginnings were popular thanks to a certain cultural liberalization, the beginning of a consumer society and an opening towards the West. However, the oil shocks and the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s deprived him of the resources needed to pursue his policy.  His role as a bridge between East and West, his industrialization policy based on Western capital and technologies and his popularity within Romanian society collapsed at the turn of the 1980s. The beginning of social and political opposition (strikes and dissidence), the decision to repay the debt to Western institutions (IMF and World Bank) which led to cruel shortages and the end of the Cold War with the arrival of Gorbachev sounded the death knell for his regime which collapsed in three days in December 1989. The one who called himself the "genius of the Carpathians", or even the "Danube of thought", was executed with his wife, Elena, at the end of a particularly hasty trial, ending a strange revolution in which many saw the hand of the Soviet "big brother". Between autocratic drift and reformist desires, nationalism and submission to the USSR, growing paranoia and all-consuming megalomania, the man remained a mystery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today I talked to Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his apprenticeship in Bucharest and discovered the social struggle and its repression at the age of fifteen within the Romanian Communist Party. In 1948, the Stalinist Gheorghiu-Dej, his mentor, having taken power, he took the opportunity to quickly climb the ranks of the party and the state. Installed in power in March 1965, Ceauşescu inherited the policy of his predecessor: avoiding de-Stalinization by playing the nationalist card. Its beginnings were popular thanks to a certain cultural liberalization, the beginning of a consumer society and an opening towards the West. However, the oil shocks and the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s deprived him of the resources needed to pursue his policy.  His role as a bridge between East and West, his industrialization policy based on Western capital and technologies and his popularity within Romanian society collapsed at the turn of the 1980s. The beginning of social and political opposition (strikes and dissidence), the decision to repay the debt to Western institutions (IMF and World Bank) which led to cruel shortages and the end of the Cold War with the arrival of Gorbachev sounded the death knell for his regime which collapsed in three days in December 1989. The one who called himself the "genius of the Carpathians", or even the "Danube of thought", was executed with his wife, Elena, at the end of a particularly hasty trial, ending a strange revolution in which many saw the hand of the Soviet "big brother". Between autocratic drift and reformist desires, nationalism and submission to the USSR, growing paranoia and all-consuming megalomania, the man remained a mystery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Today I talked to Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his apprenticeship in Bucharest and discovered the social struggle and its repression at the age of fifteen within the Romanian Communist Party. In 1948, the Stalinist Gheorghiu-Dej, his mentor, having taken power, he took the opportunity to quickly climb the ranks of the party and the state. Installed in power in March 1965, Ceauşescu inherited the policy of his predecessor: avoiding de-Stalinization by playing the nationalist card. Its beginnings were popular thanks to a certain cultural liberalization, the beginning of a consumer society and an opening towards the West. However, the oil shocks and the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s deprived him of the resources needed to pursue his policy.  His role as a bridge between East and West, his industrialization policy based on Western capital and technologies and his popularity within Romanian society collapsed at the turn of the 1980s. The beginning of social and political opposition (strikes and dissidence), the decision to repay the debt to Western institutions (IMF and World Bank) which led to cruel shortages and the end of the Cold War with the arrival of Gorbachev sounded the death knell for his regime which collapsed in three days in December 1989. The one who called himself the "genius of the Carpathians", or even the "Danube of thought", was executed with his wife, Elena, at the end of a particularly hasty trial, ending a strange revolution in which many saw the hand of the Soviet "big brother". Between autocratic drift and reformist desires, nationalism and submission to the USSR, growing paranoia and all-consuming megalomania, the man remained a mystery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Today I talked to Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his apprenticeship in Bucharest and discovered the social struggle and its repression at the age of fifteen within the Romanian Communist Party. In 1948, the Stalinist Gheorghiu-Dej, his mentor, having taken power, he took the opportunity to quickly climb the ranks of the party and the state. Installed in power in March 1965, Ceauşescu inherited the policy of his predecessor: avoiding de-Stalinization by playing the nationalist card. Its beginnings were popular thanks to a certain cultural liberalization, the beginning of a consumer society and an opening towards the West. However, the oil shocks and the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s deprived him of the resources needed to pursue his policy.  His role as a bridge between East and West, his industrialization policy based on Western capital and technologies and his popularity within Romanian society collapsed at the turn of the 1980s. The beginning of social and political opposition (strikes and dissidence), the decision to repay the debt to Western institutions (IMF and World Bank) which led to cruel shortages and the end of the Cold War with the arrival of Gorbachev sounded the death knell for his regime which collapsed in three days in December 1989. The one who called himself the "genius of the Carpathians", or even the "Danube of thought", was executed with his wife, Elena, at the end of a particularly hasty trial, ending a strange revolution in which many saw the hand of the Soviet "big brother". Between autocratic drift and reformist desires, nationalism and submission to the USSR, growing paranoia and all-consuming megalomania, the man remained a mystery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Today I talked to Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his apprenticeship in Bucharest and discovered the social struggle and its repression at the age of fifteen within the Romanian Communist Party. In 1948, the Stalinist Gheorghiu-Dej, his mentor, having taken power, he took the opportunity to quickly climb the ranks of the party and the state. Installed in power in March 1965, Ceauşescu inherited the policy of his predecessor: avoiding de-Stalinization by playing the nationalist card. Its beginnings were popular thanks to a certain cultural liberalization, the beginning of a consumer society and an opening towards the West. However, the oil shocks and the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s deprived him of the resources needed to pursue his policy.  His role as a bridge between East and West, his industrialization policy based on Western capital and technologies and his popularity within Romanian society collapsed at the turn of the 1980s. The beginning of social and political opposition (strikes and dissidence), the decision to repay the debt to Western institutions (IMF and World Bank) which led to cruel shortages and the end of the Cold War with the arrival of Gorbachev sounded the death knell for his regime which collapsed in three days in December 1989. The one who called himself the "genius of the Carpathians", or even the "Danube of thought", was executed with his wife, Elena, at the end of a particularly hasty trial, ending a strange revolution in which many saw the hand of the Soviet "big brother". Between autocratic drift and reformist desires, nationalism and submission to the USSR, growing paranoia and all-consuming megalomania, the man remained a mystery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his apprenticeship in Bucharest and discovered the social struggle and its repression at the age of fifteen within the Romanian Communist Party. In 1948, the Stalinist Gheorghiu-Dej, his mentor, having taken power, he took the opportunity to quickly climb the ranks of the party and the state. Installed in power in March 1965, Ceauşescu inherited the policy of his predecessor: avoiding de-Stalinization by playing the nationalist card. Its beginnings were popular thanks to a certain cultural liberalization, the beginning of a consumer society and an opening towards the West. However, the oil shocks and the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s deprived him of the resources needed to pursue his policy.  His role as a bridge between East and West, his industrialization policy based on Western capital and technologies and his popularity within Romanian society collapsed at the turn of the 1980s. The beginning of social and political opposition (strikes and dissidence), the decision to repay the debt to Western institutions (IMF and World Bank) which led to cruel shortages and the end of the Cold War with the arrival of Gorbachev sounded the death knell for his regime which collapsed in three days in December 1989. The one who called himself the "genius of the Carpathians", or even the "Danube of thought", was executed with his wife, Elena, at the end of a particularly hasty trial, ending a strange revolution in which many saw the hand of the Soviet "big brother". Between autocratic drift and reformist desires, nationalism and submission to the USSR, growing paranoia and all-consuming megalomania, the man remained a mystery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's "Hard to Be a God”, impecunious dons, Brave New World, the Soviet Union in the 1960s, de-Stalinization, going straight to feudalism to fascism, the stench of the 18th century, saving artists to advance society, the great expansion of man, the collaboration between criminals and reactionary religious clashes to create facism, the 2007 video game adaptation, The Worm Ouroboros, and much more!

In this engaging and insightful conversation with Claire Kaiser, we discuss her new book Georgian and Soviet: Entitled Nationhood & the Specter of Stalin in the Caucasus. Here's a description of the book: Georgian and Soviet investigates the constitutive capacity of Soviet nationhood and empire. The Soviet republic of Georgia, located in the mountainous Caucasus region, received the same nation-building template as other national republics of the USSR. Yet Stalin's Georgian heritage, intimate knowledge of Caucasian affairs, and personal involvement in local matters as he ascended to prominence left his homeland to confront a distinct set of challenges after his death in 1953. Utilizing Georgian archives and Georgian-language sources, Claire P. Kaiser argues that the postwar and post-Stalin era was decisive in the creation of a "Georgian" Georgia. This was due not only to the peculiar role played by the Stalin cult in the construction of modern Georgian nationhood but also to the subsequent changes that de-Stalinization wrought among Georgia's populace and in the unusual imperial relationship between Moscow and Tbilisi. Kaiser describes how the Soviet empire could be repressive yet also encourage opportunities for advancement—for individual careers as well as for certain nationalities. The creation of national hierarchies of entitlement could be as much about local and republic-level imperial imaginations as those of a Moscow center. Georgian and Soviet reveals that the entitled, republic-level national hierarchies that the Soviet Union created laid a foundation for the claims of nationalizing states that would emerge from the empire's wake in 1991. Today, Georgia still grapples with the legacies of its Soviet century, and the Stalin factor likewise lingers as new generations of Georgians reevaluate the symbiotic relationship between Soso Jughashvili and his native land.

In a season of multiple October Surprises, perhaps the biggest one is that which we knew: The Intercept revealed leaked documents out of the Department of Homeland Security proving collusion between the US Government and Social Media to suppress important information concerning COVID, the Bidens and other information challenging the established narratives of the Washington EliteThank you for watching this re-broadcast of our recent livestream with Project Sentinel President LTC Tony Shaffer and Sr. Fellow Jay Homnick as we discuss how the Intercept's discovery could come into play during and after the midterm elections. Also, The Atlantic is pleading for a "COVID Amnesty' for those politicians and journalists who caused devastating lockdowns, destroyed lives, separated families, forced vaccines an silenced anyone who would question them. Join us soon for our Election Night Livestream special at 9pm ET on November 8thIf you enjoy our Thought to Action videos, please comment and subscribe to our channelAlso, visit our Thought to Action Teespring Store: https://my-store-10084335.creator-spring.com/ Visit the Project Sentinel website at https://www.projectsentinel.com Project Sentinel on Twitter: @Prj_SentinelThe opinions expressed by guests are not necessarily the opinions of Project Sentinel, The London Center for Policy Research, Thought to Action, the hosts, fellows and board members.Thank you for watching; please feel free to comment, share and subscribe. For exclusive content, sneak previews and access to our full Ask Us Anything Sessions (and future live virtual events) - please join our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/thoughttoaction OR - become a member of our Youtube channel by hitting the "Join" buttonThought to Action is presented by the London Center for Policy Research https://www.londoncenter.org​Argon Productions: https://www.argonproductions.com

A disciple of Shahumyan, Anastas Mikoyan was a native of the village of Sanahin, in the historical Lori region of Armenia. A survivor from Il'ich Lenin to Il'ich Brezhnev, he became renowned both in the Soviet Union and internationally for his role as a consummate diplomat and for his management of foreign trade. However, less well known has been Mikoyan's role in Armenian affairs. Although forced by Stalin to participate in the 1930s repressions in Armenia, he would later become the major force behind de-Stalinization in his native republic. He also worked behind the scenes as an informal lobbyist for Yerevan in Moscow, securing key support for Armenia from the Kremlin. The series is hosted by historian Pietro A. Shakarian and produced by Sona Nersesyan.

Olga Bertelsen's In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022) focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB operations against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their persona friendships, formal and informal interactions, and the ways they dealt with repression and arrests. This study demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the Kharkiv multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s-1970s. Despite their various cultural and social backgrounds, the Kharkiv literati might be identified as a distinct bohemian group possessing shared aesthetic and political values that emerged as the result of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev. Archival documents, diaries, and memoirs suggest that the 1960s-1970s was a period of intense KGB operations, "active measures" designed to disrupt a community of intellectuals and to fragment friendships, bonds, and support among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews along ethnic lines domestically and abroad. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Olga Bertelsen's In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022) focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB operations against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their persona friendships, formal and informal interactions, and the ways they dealt with repression and arrests. This study demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the Kharkiv multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s-1970s. Despite their various cultural and social backgrounds, the Kharkiv literati might be identified as a distinct bohemian group possessing shared aesthetic and political values that emerged as the result of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev. Archival documents, diaries, and memoirs suggest that the 1960s-1970s was a period of intense KGB operations, "active measures" designed to disrupt a community of intellectuals and to fragment friendships, bonds, and support among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews along ethnic lines domestically and abroad. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Olga Bertelsen's In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022) focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB operations against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their persona friendships, formal and informal interactions, and the ways they dealt with repression and arrests. This study demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the Kharkiv multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s-1970s. Despite their various cultural and social backgrounds, the Kharkiv literati might be identified as a distinct bohemian group possessing shared aesthetic and political values that emerged as the result of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev. Archival documents, diaries, and memoirs suggest that the 1960s-1970s was a period of intense KGB operations, "active measures" designed to disrupt a community of intellectuals and to fragment friendships, bonds, and support among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews along ethnic lines domestically and abroad. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Olga Bertelsen's In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022) focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB operations against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their persona friendships, formal and informal interactions, and the ways they dealt with repression and arrests. This study demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the Kharkiv multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s-1970s. Despite their various cultural and social backgrounds, the Kharkiv literati might be identified as a distinct bohemian group possessing shared aesthetic and political values that emerged as the result of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev. Archival documents, diaries, and memoirs suggest that the 1960s-1970s was a period of intense KGB operations, "active measures" designed to disrupt a community of intellectuals and to fragment friendships, bonds, and support among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews along ethnic lines domestically and abroad. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Olga Bertelsen's In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022) focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB operations against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their persona friendships, formal and informal interactions, and the ways they dealt with repression and arrests. This study demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the Kharkiv multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s-1970s. Despite their various cultural and social backgrounds, the Kharkiv literati might be identified as a distinct bohemian group possessing shared aesthetic and political values that emerged as the result of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev. Archival documents, diaries, and memoirs suggest that the 1960s-1970s was a period of intense KGB operations, "active measures" designed to disrupt a community of intellectuals and to fragment friendships, bonds, and support among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews along ethnic lines domestically and abroad. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Olga Bertelsen's In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022) focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB operations against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their persona friendships, formal and informal interactions, and the ways they dealt with repression and arrests. This study demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the Kharkiv multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s-1970s. Despite their various cultural and social backgrounds, the Kharkiv literati might be identified as a distinct bohemian group possessing shared aesthetic and political values that emerged as the result of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev. Archival documents, diaries, and memoirs suggest that the 1960s-1970s was a period of intense KGB operations, "active measures" designed to disrupt a community of intellectuals and to fragment friendships, bonds, and support among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews along ethnic lines domestically and abroad. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Olga Bertelsen's In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022) focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine, a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB operations against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their persona friendships, formal and informal interactions, and the ways they dealt with repression and arrests. This study demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the Kharkiv multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s-1970s. Despite their various cultural and social backgrounds, the Kharkiv literati might be identified as a distinct bohemian group possessing shared aesthetic and political values that emerged as the result of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev. Archival documents, diaries, and memoirs suggest that the 1960s-1970s was a period of intense KGB operations, "active measures" designed to disrupt a community of intellectuals and to fragment friendships, bonds, and support among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews along ethnic lines domestically and abroad. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olga Bertelsen's timely book, In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022), focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine—a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB “active measures” against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their personal friendships, formal and informal interactions, and how they dealt with repression and arrests. Her book demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s–1970s. Bertelsen shows that, in the face of intense KGB operations, Kharkivite writers and intellectuals attempted to survive in the state's “labyrinth” with their integrity, creativity, and human relationships intact. This book sheds light on the history of Soviet intelligence tactics and the creative intelligentsia, and helps explain the legacies of Soviet/Russian state violence that are erupting once more in Ukraine. Olga Bertelsen is an Associate Professor of Global Security and Intelligence at Tiffin University's School of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences in Ohio, USA. Anna Bisikalo is a PhD candidate in history at Harvard University. She is writing a dissertation on the social history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine from 1945 to the early post-Soviet period. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Olga Bertelsen's timely book, In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022), focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine—a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB “active measures” against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their personal friendships, formal and informal interactions, and how they dealt with repression and arrests. Her book demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s–1970s. Bertelsen shows that, in the face of intense KGB operations, Kharkivite writers and intellectuals attempted to survive in the state's “labyrinth” with their integrity, creativity, and human relationships intact. This book sheds light on the history of Soviet intelligence tactics and the creative intelligentsia, and helps explain the legacies of Soviet/Russian state violence that are erupting once more in Ukraine. Olga Bertelsen is an Associate Professor of Global Security and Intelligence at Tiffin University's School of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences in Ohio, USA. Anna Bisikalo is a PhD candidate in history at Harvard University. She is writing a dissertation on the social history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine from 1945 to the early post-Soviet period. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Olga Bertelsen's timely book, In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022), focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine—a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB “active measures” against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their personal friendships, formal and informal interactions, and how they dealt with repression and arrests. Her book demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s–1970s. Bertelsen shows that, in the face of intense KGB operations, Kharkivite writers and intellectuals attempted to survive in the state's “labyrinth” with their integrity, creativity, and human relationships intact. This book sheds light on the history of Soviet intelligence tactics and the creative intelligentsia, and helps explain the legacies of Soviet/Russian state violence that are erupting once more in Ukraine. Olga Bertelsen is an Associate Professor of Global Security and Intelligence at Tiffin University's School of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences in Ohio, USA. Anna Bisikalo is a PhD candidate in history at Harvard University. She is writing a dissertation on the social history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine from 1945 to the early post-Soviet period. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Olga Bertelsen's timely book, In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022), focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine—a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB “active measures” against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their personal friendships, formal and informal interactions, and how they dealt with repression and arrests. Her book demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s–1970s. Bertelsen shows that, in the face of intense KGB operations, Kharkivite writers and intellectuals attempted to survive in the state's “labyrinth” with their integrity, creativity, and human relationships intact. This book sheds light on the history of Soviet intelligence tactics and the creative intelligentsia, and helps explain the legacies of Soviet/Russian state violence that are erupting once more in Ukraine. Olga Bertelsen is an Associate Professor of Global Security and Intelligence at Tiffin University's School of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences in Ohio, USA. Anna Bisikalo is a PhD candidate in history at Harvard University. She is writing a dissertation on the social history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine from 1945 to the early post-Soviet period. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Olga Bertelsen's timely book, In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022), focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine—a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB “active measures” against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their personal friendships, formal and informal interactions, and how they dealt with repression and arrests. Her book demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s–1970s. Bertelsen shows that, in the face of intense KGB operations, Kharkivite writers and intellectuals attempted to survive in the state's “labyrinth” with their integrity, creativity, and human relationships intact. This book sheds light on the history of Soviet intelligence tactics and the creative intelligentsia, and helps explain the legacies of Soviet/Russian state violence that are erupting once more in Ukraine. Olga Bertelsen is an Associate Professor of Global Security and Intelligence at Tiffin University's School of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences in Ohio, USA. Anna Bisikalo is a PhD candidate in history at Harvard University. She is writing a dissertation on the social history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine from 1945 to the early post-Soviet period. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Olga Bertelsen's timely book, In the Labyrinth of the KGB: Ukraine's Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Lexington Books, 2022), focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine—a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB “active measures” against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their personal friendships, formal and informal interactions, and how they dealt with repression and arrests. Her book demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s–1970s. Bertelsen shows that, in the face of intense KGB operations, Kharkivite writers and intellectuals attempted to survive in the state's “labyrinth” with their integrity, creativity, and human relationships intact. This book sheds light on the history of Soviet intelligence tactics and the creative intelligentsia, and helps explain the legacies of Soviet/Russian state violence that are erupting once more in Ukraine. Olga Bertelsen is an Associate Professor of Global Security and Intelligence at Tiffin University's School of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences in Ohio, USA. Anna Bisikalo is a PhD candidate in history at Harvard University. She is writing a dissertation on the social history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine from 1945 to the early post-Soviet period. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anastas Mikoyan was an incredible figure. An Armenian old Bolshevik whose career spanned decades all the way from active involvement in the Baku Commune of 1918 to playing a central role in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Mikoyan's role as First Deputy Premier under Khrushchev and architect of de-Stalinization and thaw-era nationality policies meant his career of policy making influenced the trajectory of the entire Soviet Union. He also maintained close political and personal ties to the goings on in his native Armenia. Our guest to discuss Mikoyan, Soviet Armenia and much more is Dr. Pietro A. Shakarian - a Lecturer in History at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan, and a historian of Armenia, Russia, and the Caucasus, with a particular focus on Soviet Armenia during the era of Khrushchev's Thaw. An article by Dr. Shakarian - "Yerevan 1954: Anastas Mikoyan and Nationality Reform in the Thaw, 1954–1964" https://www.peripheralhistories.co.uk/post/yerevan-1954-anastas-mikoyan-and-nationality-reform-in-the-thaw-1954-1964

Selamlar. Dibimizde Rus ayısı bağırıyorken, Spor Ekonomisi serisine ara vereyim dedim ve gündemle uzaktan alakalı kişisel bir hikaye anlatmak istedim. Merkezinde, pek bir şeyleri deviremeyen 1956 Devrimi ve bir kadın var.Bölümler:(00:35) Kimlik oluşturan mağlubiyet(01:30) Zorla ev arkadaşı(03:15) Özgürleşme tazminatı(03:55) de-Stalinization(06:35) İlk zafer. Video: The Battle Of Budapest: Hungarian Revolution (1956) | British Pathé(07:45) Süveyş kazığı(09:05) "Tankies"(09:50) Uzun Bacaklı Maria(13:20) Terör Evi(16:00) Dünyanın en büyük ikinci Macar şehri Cleveland(17:10) Bağımsızlık ve ölüm(18:50) Memory Project(19:10) Belgesel: Freedom's Fury ve Blood in the Water(21:20) Patreon TeşekkürleriBelgesel: The 1956 Hungarian Revolution by the BBCSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Officially called ‘On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences', Khrushchev's speech was a vehement denunciation of Stalin's abuses of power and his creation of a personality ...

In Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union: From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (Bloomsbury,, 2019), Barbara Martin traces the careers of four prominent figures: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Roy Medvedev, Aleksandr Nekrich and Anton Antonov-Ovseenko. Based on extensive archival research into these four authors, Martin provides a new account of dissident history writing in the Soviet Union from the post-Stalin Thaw through to the Brezhnev era and Perestroika. Dissident Histories illuminates the challenges associated with researching, writing and publishing Soviet history and the critical impact that this work had on intellectual life in the Soviet Union. Barbara Martin is a postdoctoral researcher within the Department of History at the University of Basel. Iva Glisic is a historian and art historian specialising in modern Russia and the Balkans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union: From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (Bloomsbury,, 2019), Barbara Martin traces the careers of four prominent figures: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Roy Medvedev, Aleksandr Nekrich and Anton Antonov-Ovseenko. Based on extensive archival research into these four authors, Martin provides a new account of dissident history writing in the Soviet Union from the post-Stalin Thaw through to the Brezhnev era and Perestroika. Dissident Histories illuminates the challenges associated with researching, writing and publishing Soviet history and the critical impact that this work had on intellectual life in the Soviet Union. Barbara Martin is a postdoctoral researcher within the Department of History at the University of Basel. Iva Glisic is a historian and art historian specialising in modern Russia and the Balkans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union: From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (Bloomsbury,, 2019), Barbara Martin traces the careers of four prominent figures: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Roy Medvedev, Aleksandr Nekrich and Anton Antonov-Ovseenko. Based on extensive archival research into these four authors, Martin provides a new account of dissident history writing in the Soviet Union from the post-Stalin Thaw through to the Brezhnev era and Perestroika. Dissident Histories illuminates the challenges associated with researching, writing and publishing Soviet history and the critical impact that this work had on intellectual life in the Soviet Union. Barbara Martin is a postdoctoral researcher within the Department of History at the University of Basel. Iva Glisic is a historian and art historian specialising in modern Russia and the Balkans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

In Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union: From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (Bloomsbury,, 2019), Barbara Martin traces the careers of four prominent figures: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Roy Medvedev, Aleksandr Nekrich and Anton Antonov-Ovseenko. Based on extensive archival research into these four authors, Martin provides a new account of dissident history writing in the Soviet Union from the post-Stalin Thaw through to the Brezhnev era and Perestroika. Dissident Histories illuminates the challenges associated with researching, writing and publishing Soviet history and the critical impact that this work had on intellectual life in the Soviet Union. Barbara Martin is a postdoctoral researcher within the Department of History at the University of Basel. Iva Glisic is a historian and art historian specialising in modern Russia and the Balkans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union: From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (Bloomsbury,, 2019), Barbara Martin traces the careers of four prominent figures: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Roy Medvedev, Aleksandr Nekrich and Anton Antonov-Ovseenko. Based on extensive archival research into these four authors, Martin provides a new account of dissident history writing in the Soviet Union from the post-Stalin Thaw through to the Brezhnev era and Perestroika. Dissident Histories illuminates the challenges associated with researching, writing and publishing Soviet history and the critical impact that this work had on intellectual life in the Soviet Union. Barbara Martin is a postdoctoral researcher within the Department of History at the University of Basel. Iva Glisic is a historian and art historian specialising in modern Russia and the Balkans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

A specialist in 19th and 20th century Russian and Eurasian history, Dr. Pietro Shakarian speaks to EVN Report about the intricate and complicated history surrounding Soviet Armenian statesman Anastas Mikoyan, how his ethnicity informed his politics, his role in the purges and later in the series of political reforms after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 known as de-Stalinization.

  A specialist in 19th and 20th century Russian and Eurasian history, Dr. Pietro Shakarian speaks to EVN Report about the intricate and complicated history surrounding Soviet Armenian statesman Anastas Mikoyan, how his ethnicity informed his politics, his role in the purges and later in the series of political reforms after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 known as de-Stalinization.

In this episode we examine the Destalinization's impact on the Soviet economy and society. For pictures for this episode and more go to our website at: 
www.historyofthecoldwarpodcast.com/ Want to skip the ads and get right to the content, become a patreon subscriber here:
www.patreon.com/coldwarpodcast

Dr. Carol Any’s The Soviet Writer’s Union and Its Leaders: Identity and Authority Under Stalin (Northwestern University Press, 2020) covers the writer’s union’s formation and functions, from its inception in 1932 to the aftermath of de-Stalinization. This coverage is placed in context of the pre-1932 Association of Proletarian Writers, and so the book provides a useful interpretation of Soviet writers’ interrelationships as well as their relationship with the state, for much of the Soviet era. Particularly interesting is how Any analyzes the psychological universe Soviet writers inhabited. Many writers wrote what they were supposed to; some resisted doing so. But either way, the state was largely successful at controlling the intellectual terms of engagement for Soviet writers in its official union. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Dr. Carol Any’s The Soviet Writer’s Union and Its Leaders: Identity and Authority Under Stalin (Northwestern University Press, 2020) covers the writer’s union’s formation and functions, from its inception in 1932 to the aftermath of de-Stalinization. This coverage is placed in context of the pre-1932 Association of Proletarian Writers, and so the book provides a useful interpretation of Soviet writers’ interrelationships as well as their relationship with the state, for much of the Soviet era. Particularly interesting is how Any analyzes the psychological universe Soviet writers inhabited. Many writers wrote what they were supposed to; some resisted doing so. But either way, the state was largely successful at controlling the intellectual terms of engagement for Soviet writers in its official union. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Dr. Carol Any’s The Soviet Writer’s Union and Its Leaders: Identity and Authority Under Stalin (Northwestern University Press, 2020) covers the writer’s union’s formation and functions, from its inception in 1932 to the aftermath of de-Stalinization. This coverage is placed in context of the pre-1932 Association of Proletarian Writers, and so the book provides a useful interpretation of Soviet writers’ interrelationships as well as their relationship with the state, for much of the Soviet era. Particularly interesting is how Any analyzes the psychological universe Soviet writers inhabited. Many writers wrote what they were supposed to; some resisted doing so. But either way, the state was largely successful at controlling the intellectual terms of engagement for Soviet writers in its official union. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Dr. Carol Any’s The Soviet Writer’s Union and Its Leaders: Identity and Authority Under Stalin (Northwestern University Press, 2020) covers the writer’s union’s formation and functions, from its inception in 1932 to the aftermath of de-Stalinization. This coverage is placed in context of the pre-1932 Association of Proletarian Writers, and so the book provides a useful interpretation of Soviet writers’ interrelationships as well as their relationship with the state, for much of the Soviet era. Particularly interesting is how Any analyzes the psychological universe Soviet writers inhabited. Many writers wrote what they were supposed to; some resisted doing so. But either way, the state was largely successful at controlling the intellectual terms of engagement for Soviet writers in its official union. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Dr. Carol Any’s The Soviet Writer’s Union and Its Leaders: Identity and Authority Under Stalin (Northwestern University Press, 2020) covers the writer’s union’s formation and functions, from its inception in 1932 to the aftermath of de-Stalinization. This coverage is placed in context of the pre-1932 Association of Proletarian Writers, and so the book provides a useful interpretation of Soviet writers’ interrelationships as well as their relationship with the state, for much of the Soviet era. Particularly interesting is how Any analyzes the psychological universe Soviet writers inhabited. Many writers wrote what they were supposed to; some resisted doing so. But either way, the state was largely successful at controlling the intellectual terms of engagement for Soviet writers in its official union. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Episode 1 - The State of Soviet History in Georgia In this episode we explore how Soviet History and its legacies in Georgia are generally understood and approached today in academia, politics, the NGO sector and society at large. In Part I we interview Timothy Blauvelt - professor of History at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. Teaching in Georgia for almost 19 years he has produced a range of varied scholarship relating to both Soviet history and in particular Georgia and the South Caucasus on patronage networks in Abkhazia, the 1956 protests in Tbilisi against de-Stalinization, attitudes in Georgia towards the Russian language, and has an upcoming book entitled Clientalism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom: The Trials of Nestor Lakoba to be released this year. We discuss with Timothy the roles and relationship between university research and NGO research on the Soviet past in Georgia as well as Timothy's own research on Soviet Georgia and Abkhazia as well as the socio-political and academic environments in which this research is received. In Part II we interview Beka Natsvlishvili, professor and former MP in Georgia to discuss the use of anti-Soviet memory politics in Georgia and the implications this has on political development and debate in the country. Beka shares his own experiences in both the university setting and as a politician in Georgia to shed light on the real uses and misuses of Georgia's Soviet experience and why a reconsideration of Georgia's Soviet past is important for developing a coherent left wing politics today.

Born in Sanahin, Armenia in 1895, Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was the most prominent Soviet state figure of Armenian origin. A survivor, Mikoyan managed to weather every Soviet leader from Lenin to Brezhnev. He was once the #2 man in Moscow after Nikita Khrushchev, and his legacy is complex. Today on Groong, we will explore this extraordinary historical figure.To help us unpack the historical legacy of Mikoyan, Pietro Shakarian joins us today from Cleveland. Pietro is a historian and a Ph.D. candidate in Russian History at the Ohio State University. His dissertation focuses on Mikoyan’s reforms in de-Stalinization and the nationality sphere in the Khrushchev-era USSR. His analyses on Russia, Armenia, and the post-Soviet space have appeared in The Nation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Russian International Affairs Council, Russia Direct, and Hetq. He has also worked with the Gomidas Institute in London on the republication of 19th century accounts of the Russian Caucasus and Armenia.Editors: - Asbed Bedrossian - Hovik Manucharyan

It’s an iconic moment that signaled the symbolic, if not yet actual, end of the Soviet Union.Aug. 23, 1991. A crowd of thousands had gathered at Lubyanka Square just opposite the KGB headquarters.Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s future first president, had just rallied the public in a successful — and terrifying — three-day revolt against a coup by Soviet hard-liners against democratic reforms then sweeping the USSR.Related: Statue of Black protester replaces toppled UK slave trader Amid the rush of victory, the crowd stared up at a mammoth, 16-ton monument to “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky, the founder and patron saint of the Soviet secret police.Their one shared thought: “Tear — him — down.”“It wasn’t just any monument. It was a symbol of Soviet injustice, a symbol of a totalitarian system.”Irina Bogantseva, Moscow City Council“It wasn’t just any monument,” said Irina Bogantseva, who was part of a group of new, democratically elected officials to the Moscow City Council watching the events unfold that day.“It was a symbol of Soviet injustice, a symbol of a totalitarian system,” she said.As the crowd grew in numbers — some 20,000 — Moscow’s new deputy mayor, Sergei Stankevich, was also called to the square.“They woke me up with the call,” he told The World. “I hadn’t slept for three days because of the coup.”Once at Lubyanka, he quickly grew alarmed. Protesters were yanking and pulling on the statue with ropes tied to nearby cars.Related: How Russia laid the groundwork for future disinformation campaignsAs Felix swayed, Stankevich grew worried someone might get crushed. Then, he had another thought: Why don’t elected officials hold a vote about what to do?“The coup plotters had tried to overthrow [Mikhail] Gorbachev, but we were chosen and elected by the people,” he said.Calls were made, faxes were sent, and arguments were had. By early evening, a majority cast votes in favor of removing the monument. Lawmakers even went digging for the original construction plans.“They showed a metal column went far up from the base into the statute — which meant Felix could only be lifted off his pedestal, not toppled.”Stankevich started making calls to find an industrial crane — eventually convincing a local construction company with a promise he wouldn’t divulge their role in bringing down the patron saint of the Soviet KGB. “No, he wasn’t torn down,” Stankevich said. “We raised him off his pedestal using two cranes because he was so heavy, you needed two. And so, we lowered him onto a truck bed and took him away.”In other words, what happened next: Felix dangling in the air, a rope around his neck. An image that encapsulated the end of an empire.It was history shaped by city ordinance — not mob rule.A new homeFelix ultimately ended up in Park Muzeon, a stretch of grassy land nestled along the Moscow River that’s become an outdoor museum to discarded statues and busts of Soviet leaders — including the dictator Josef Stalin.Related: Symbols of 'racist past' topple amid global BLM protestsIt’s a place to reflect on the darker chapters of Soviet life, including Stalin’s lethal repressions. The “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky statue now stands in the Russian Park Muzeon, a stretch of grassy land nestled in Moscow. Credit: Ricardo Marquina Montañana/The World  A work that memorializes victims of the gulag prison camps serves as a reminder of both how grim the past has been — and how much the new Russia has changed.At least in theory.“He means nothing to me, if I’m being honest.” Darya, recent university graduate“He means nothing to me, if I’m being honest,” said 22-year-old Darya, a recent university graduate, when asked about Dzerzhinsky’s monument.“I don’t come to this park for the statues,” she said. “Those events were before my time.”Related: Felling of slave trader statue prompts fresh look at British historyBut Vera Timofeevna, 80, says she misses seeing Felix back at the old spot.“We walked by him all through my childhood,” she said. “It wasn’t political at all.““And then those young idiots strung him up and took him away. What can you expect from uneducated people?”As debate in the US has raged over the removal of Confederate and other monuments that celebrate a racist past, Alexander Verkhovsky has been thinking hard about how Russians confront their own history.The director of the SOVA Center, an organization that tracks hate crimes and xenophobia in Russia, Verkhovsky notes even Russia’s greatest 19th-century writers held serfs — akin to American slaves in the Russian empire.Literary giants like Lev Tolstoy were often the progressive voices of their day — and still fell short by modern standards.“They lived in a completely different world,” Verkhovsky said.“Monuments are by nature always in the wrong place. Because at some point, they’re put up … but time keeps moving forward.”Alexander Verkhovsky, SOVA Center, director “Monuments are by nature always in the wrong place. Because at some point, they’re put up … but time keeps moving forward.”Communist legacyToday, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin still dots the Russian landscape — with statues, streets and squares in his honor so ubiquitous they’re mostly ignored.Even Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square, where a mummified Lenin still remains, is now mainly a curiosity to tourists, or those seeking a grim (and waxy) laugh.But polls show Russians growing admiration for Stalin — despite the legacy of the Great Terror that led to an official Soviet, de-Stalinization campaign in the mid-1950s.And then there are Dzerzhinsky’s descendants in the security services — once again a powerful force in Vladimir Putin’s Russia today. For many, the “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky monument in Moscow is a symbol of Soviet injustice.  Credit: Ricardo Marquina Montañana/The World  “In the heads of people who work in the security services, Dzerzhinsky has been mythologized into a symbol of honesty, order and principled values,” warned former lawmaker, Bogentseva.There are occasional calls, she notes, to return Dzerzhinsky back to Lubyanka Square.Yet, through it all, Iron Felix has remained in the park — a fact that those who helped bring him here say is due to having preserved the monument.“You can't allow these monuments to be desecrated because it provokes a desire for revenge, to return them back.” Sergei Stankevich, former Moscow deputy mayor“You can't allow these monuments to be desecrated because it provokes a desire for revenge, to return them back,” said the former deputy mayor, Stankevich.“That's the price of desecration.”It’s a message Stankevich thinks might prove helpful to Americans as they grapple with what to do about monuments from their own troubled history — deciding not only who deserves a pedestal, but who should be put out to pasture.Editor's note: A couple of sources asked that their full names not be used so their partial names are used above.  

Dr. John Garver, author of China’s Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China discussed his book with National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Vice President Jan Berris on April 14, 2016 in New York City. When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, China was in a state of disarray. Decades of occupation and civil war had left the country fractured and impoverished. The nation embarked on an ambitious effort to overhaul its economic and political systems. While its domestic agenda was the priority for the Communist Party of China, China had to develop a foreign policy, particularly to deal with the world’s capitalist countries in the midst of the Cold War. With memories of the “century of humiliation” fresh in Chinese people’s minds, countering inroads of Western bourgeois liberalism was at the top of the international agenda during the early years of the PRC. As the Cold War evolved, however, so, too, did China’s foreign policy concerns.  Following Stalin’s death, China’s leadership grew increasingly skeptical of the Soviet Union and the intentions of its new Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. The Sino-Soviet split exposed what author and scholar John W. Garver considers the real force shaping the PRC’s foreign policy: regime survival. While many political scientists have analyzed China’s approach to the split through a realist lens, focusing on national interest, Dr. Garver argues that de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union threatened the ideological foundation of the Chinese communist regime.  The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations is the leading nonprofit nonpartisan organization that encourages understanding of China and the United States among citizens of both countries.  

Thirty years after a trip to the GDR, Soviet cardiologist V.I. Metelitsa still remembered mistakenly trying to buy a dress for a ten-year-old daughter in a maternity shop: ‘In our country I couldn’t even imagine that such a specialized shop could exist’.” Well-stocked shops, attractive cafes, and medieval streets were among the many discoveries that Soviet citizens made in their trips abroad. After decades of closed borders and rumors of life abroad, the 1950s ushered in a new era — an era in which Soviet citizens would be able to participate in the transnational circulation of people, ideas, and items. In All This is Your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad After Stalin (Oxford University Press, 2011), Anne Gorsuch discusses the varied experiences of Soviet citizens traveling at home, to the “near abroad” of Estonia, and to Eastern and Western Europe, in the Khrushchev era. For many, this travel was no holiday but a purposeful excursion. Tourists were to learn about other parts of the world, but most importantly, they were to represent the Soviet Union in a Cold War struggle over culture. The Soviet tourist was an actor and the world his stage. If tourism was an olive branch and propaganda tool, however, it was also an opportunity for personal encounter and pleasure, including shopping on Oxford Street in London and enjoying the French Riviera. These experiences did not inevitably lead to anti-Soviet opinions or actions. For many elite travelers in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was possible for them to admire, purchase, and envy Western consumer goods, and still believe in the future of Soviet socialism. Dr. Gorsuch examines new opportunities for cultural exchange and transnational encounter, exploring the meaning of travel and exploration for a country breaking the chains of Stalinization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thirty years after a trip to the GDR, Soviet cardiologist V.I. Metelitsa still remembered mistakenly trying to buy a dress for a ten-year-old daughter in a maternity shop: ‘In our country I couldn't even imagine that such a specialized shop could exist'.” Well-stocked shops, attractive cafes, and medieval streets were among the many discoveries that Soviet citizens made in their trips abroad. After decades of closed borders and rumors of life abroad, the 1950s ushered in a new era — an era in which Soviet citizens would be able to participate in the transnational circulation of people, ideas, and items. In All This is Your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad After Stalin (Oxford University Press, 2011), Anne Gorsuch discusses the varied experiences of Soviet citizens traveling at home, to the “near abroad” of Estonia, and to Eastern and Western Europe, in the Khrushchev era. For many, this travel was no holiday but a purposeful excursion. Tourists were to learn about other parts of the world, but most importantly, they were to represent the Soviet Union in a Cold War struggle over culture. The Soviet tourist was an actor and the world his stage. If tourism was an olive branch and propaganda tool, however, it was also an opportunity for personal encounter and pleasure, including shopping on Oxford Street in London and enjoying the French Riviera. These experiences did not inevitably lead to anti-Soviet opinions or actions. For many elite travelers in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was possible for them to admire, purchase, and envy Western consumer goods, and still believe in the future of Soviet socialism. Dr. Gorsuch examines new opportunities for cultural exchange and transnational encounter, exploring the meaning of travel and exploration for a country breaking the chains of Stalinization.

Thirty years after a trip to the GDR, Soviet cardiologist V.I. Metelitsa still remembered mistakenly trying to buy a dress for a ten-year-old daughter in a maternity shop: ‘In our country I couldn’t even imagine that such a specialized shop could exist’.” Well-stocked shops, attractive cafes, and medieval streets were among the many discoveries that Soviet citizens made in their trips abroad. After decades of closed borders and rumors of life abroad, the 1950s ushered in a new era — an era in which Soviet citizens would be able to participate in the transnational circulation of people, ideas, and items. In All This is Your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad After Stalin (Oxford University Press, 2011), Anne Gorsuch discusses the varied experiences of Soviet citizens traveling at home, to the “near abroad” of Estonia, and to Eastern and Western Europe, in the Khrushchev era. For many, this travel was no holiday but a purposeful excursion. Tourists were to learn about other parts of the world, but most importantly, they were to represent the Soviet Union in a Cold War struggle over culture. The Soviet tourist was an actor and the world his stage. If tourism was an olive branch and propaganda tool, however, it was also an opportunity for personal encounter and pleasure, including shopping on Oxford Street in London and enjoying the French Riviera. These experiences did not inevitably lead to anti-Soviet opinions or actions. For many elite travelers in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was possible for them to admire, purchase, and envy Western consumer goods, and still believe in the future of Soviet socialism. Dr. Gorsuch examines new opportunities for cultural exchange and transnational encounter, exploring the meaning of travel and exploration for a country breaking the chains of Stalinization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thirty years after a trip to the GDR, Soviet cardiologist V.I. Metelitsa still remembered mistakenly trying to buy a dress for a ten-year-old daughter in a maternity shop: ‘In our country I couldn’t even imagine that such a specialized shop could exist’.” Well-stocked shops, attractive cafes, and medieval streets were among the many discoveries that Soviet citizens made in their trips abroad. After decades of closed borders and rumors of life abroad, the 1950s ushered in a new era — an era in which Soviet citizens would be able to participate in the transnational circulation of people, ideas, and items. In All This is Your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad After Stalin (Oxford University Press, 2011), Anne Gorsuch discusses the varied experiences of Soviet citizens traveling at home, to the “near abroad” of Estonia, and to Eastern and Western Europe, in the Khrushchev era. For many, this travel was no holiday but a purposeful excursion. Tourists were to learn about other parts of the world, but most importantly, they were to represent the Soviet Union in a Cold War struggle over culture. The Soviet tourist was an actor and the world his stage. If tourism was an olive branch and propaganda tool, however, it was also an opportunity for personal encounter and pleasure, including shopping on Oxford Street in London and enjoying the French Riviera. These experiences did not inevitably lead to anti-Soviet opinions or actions. For many elite travelers in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was possible for them to admire, purchase, and envy Western consumer goods, and still believe in the future of Soviet socialism. Dr. Gorsuch examines new opportunities for cultural exchange and transnational encounter, exploring the meaning of travel and exploration for a country breaking the chains of Stalinization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thirty years after a trip to the GDR, Soviet cardiologist V.I. Metelitsa still remembered mistakenly trying to buy a dress for a ten-year-old daughter in a maternity shop: ‘In our country I couldn’t even imagine that such a specialized shop could exist’.” Well-stocked shops, attractive cafes, and medieval streets were among the many discoveries that Soviet citizens made in their trips abroad. After decades of closed borders and rumors of life abroad, the 1950s ushered in a new era — an era in which Soviet citizens would be able to participate in the transnational circulation of people, ideas, and items. In All This is Your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad After Stalin (Oxford University Press, 2011), Anne Gorsuch discusses the varied experiences of Soviet citizens traveling at home, to the “near abroad” of Estonia, and to Eastern and Western Europe, in the Khrushchev era. For many, this travel was no holiday but a purposeful excursion. Tourists were to learn about other parts of the world, but most importantly, they were to represent the Soviet Union in a Cold War struggle over culture. The Soviet tourist was an actor and the world his stage. If tourism was an olive branch and propaganda tool, however, it was also an opportunity for personal encounter and pleasure, including shopping on Oxford Street in London and enjoying the French Riviera. These experiences did not inevitably lead to anti-Soviet opinions or actions. For many elite travelers in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was possible for them to admire, purchase, and envy Western consumer goods, and still believe in the future of Soviet socialism. Dr. Gorsuch examines new opportunities for cultural exchange and transnational encounter, exploring the meaning of travel and exploration for a country breaking the chains of Stalinization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices