The International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and its Consequences at HSE University held a Graduate Student Seminar in Soviet History together with Sciences Po (France) on June 17 – 18, 2019. HSE News Service spoke with participants and instructors of the seminar, which examinedthe impact of WWII on the Soviet Union and surrounding regions, as well as aspects of the Soviet system from Stalin up to the 1980s.
On June 24-25, HSE University held the international academic conference, ‘The 1990s: A Social History of Russia’ organized by International Center for the History and Sociology of World World War II and its Consequences, the Boris Yeltsin Center, the Egor Gaider Foundation, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. HSE News Service spoke with Roberto Rabbia, one of the international participants, about how he became interested in Soviet history, why he reads Soviet newspapers, and what he has learned from his research.
On October 3, the School of History and the HSE Centre for Digital Humanities, with support from the Teaching Excellence Initiative, held a lecture by Dr. Andrew Janco (Haverford College, USA) entitled ‘Engaging Students in the Humanities and Sciences through Digital Scholarship Projects.’ Covering methods for engaging students in project-based research in the digital humanities, the lecture aimed to demonstrate the benefits of researchers working with students as co-investigators with their own research interests and agenda.
Associate Professor Anna Guseva from HSE’s School of History is a participant in the CAA-Getty International Program and attended this year’s College Art Association Conference.
On October 10, Stephen Wheatcroft, Professor of the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne delivered a lecture on ‘The importance of the grain problem in the Russian Revolution and for the next 40 years of Soviet Economics' at HSE Moscow as part of a long and busy schedule. A participant at previous April Conferences at HSE, Professor Wheatcroft is one of the world’s foremost experts on Soviet social, economic and demographic history, as well as famine and food supply problems in modern world history.
On May 31, Valerie Kivelson, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, will be delivering a seminar entitled ‘Visualizing Empire: Muscovite Images of Race’. Professor Kivelson is an expert in Medieval and early modern Russia, history of cartography, history of witchcraft, religion, and political culture, among other topics. She is the author of 'Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth Century Russia' and a guest editor of 'Witchcraft Casebook: Magic in Russia, Poland and Ukraine. 15-21st Centuries'.
This April, Microhistory Days took place at HSE. The event coincided with the visit to the School of History of Prof. Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon (Reykjavík Academy in Iceland) and Dr. István Szijártó (Loránd Eötvös University, Budapest), renowned experts in microhistory, founders of the Microhistory Network, and authors of What is Microhistory? Theory and Practice, a comprehensive analytical monograph.
Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator (Yale) by Oleg Khlevniuk (translated by Nora Favorov) has received the second prize of Pushkin House (UK), for the best Russian book in translation. The award, supported by Waterstones and Douglas Smith & Stephanie Ellis-Smith, supports the best non-fiction writing on the Russian-speaking world published for the first time in English in the previous year.
The Director of the HSE Centre for Source Studies presented his research on the role of ‘administrative entrepreneurs’ in the development of early education and other state institutions in Russia under Peter the Great.
The review of the book ‘Povsednevnaia zhizn vorovskogo mira vo vremena Vanki Kaina’ (Daily Life of the Thieves' World in the Time of Vanka Kain) by Evgeny Akelev, Asociate Professor at the School of History, was published in the first issue of the 17th volume of the leading academic journal on Russian history ‘Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History’.
