On March 28-31, 2021, the HSE International Laboratory ‘Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective’ held an international conference ‘The Russian Far East: Regional and Transnational Perspectives (19th -21st cent.)’. The event was jointly organized by the Laboratory with the German Historical Institute Moscow, Indiana University Bloomington (USA), and the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East FEB RAS (Vladivostok).
On February 9, the HSE International Laboratory 'Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective' hosted Janet Hartley (London School of Economics), who presented her recent monograph The Volga: A History of Russia’s Greatest River. The presentation was part of a joint lecture series between the Laboratory and The Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation. HSE news service spoke with Janet Hartley about her interest in Russia, her experience travelling and doing research in Russia, and the books she has written on Russia.
Known for its particularly tactile culture, the Eastern Roman Empire maintained rather complex customs when it came to kissing—on the lips, the shoulders, the chest, and the feet. Emperors and nobles, military leaders, and even monks engaged in the practice unsparingly. Based on the research of Sergey Ivanov, professor of history and philology at the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies of HSE University, IQ has prepared a short guide to Byzantine kisses.
After June 1941, the Soviet budget was no longer the same. Marking the end of peaceful life, budget revenues dwindled, and the Treasury was drained of billions of rubles. But because the war required money, the government had to find it from somewhere. Oleg Khlevnyuk, Professor at the HSE University’s School of History, examines the Soviet Union’s wartime and post-war financial policies in his paper.
Russian women who associated with Soviet allies during World War II were subjected to unusually harsh persecution. This was especially true in the north of the country that saw the arrival of thousands of U.S. and British sailors. For having contact with these foreigners, Soviet women received the same severe punishment meted out to Nazi collaborators: charges of treason and 10 years in a forced labour camp. HSE Associate Professor Liudmila Novikova studied how and why this policy shaped their destinies.
Isabelle R. Kaplan, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, talks about her research on non-Slavic minorities in the Soviet Union in an interview to the HSE Look.
In 2001, ten years after the launch of reforms in Russia, 54% of Russians believed the main achievement of the reforms was the availability of consumer goods, rather than freedom of speech or the possibility of travelling abroad. A decade later, public attitudes had not changed, and the availability of goods on store shelves was still perceived as the number one priority. The massive trauma caused by scarcity was particularly strong. How it was addressed and in what way it influenced public attitudes after the USSR collapse is examined in a study by HSE professor Oleg Khlevnyuk.
Alexandr Voronovici,a second year postdoctoral research fellow at the International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, shared his experience of teaching transnational perspective on Soviet history to HSE students.
International Symposium "Cold War Matters: (In)Visible Economies of Things” organized by HSE Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History was held on December 16-17, 2019 in St. Petersburg. Simo Mikkonen, Academy of Finland Research Fellow and a member of the organizing committee, and Andreas Pacher, PhD Candidate at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and conference participant, talk about some aspects of the conference and their cooperation with HSE University.
In 1945, the Soviet Army seized the film archive of the Third Reich, the so-called Reichfilmarchive, and brought it from Berlin to Moscow. The archive contained thousands of movies from various countries. Since then, the German, American, and a few European trophies circulated throughout the Soviet Union despite a lack of an effective distribution license. This copyright violation turned out to be a stumbling block in the relations between the USSR and the USA, while the early Cold War confrontation between the two superpowers added a political twist to the conflict. Both countries were now using cinematography as a weapon in their fight, trying to do as much harm to the opponent as possible. Kristina Tanis, a researcher from HSE University, investigates the battles between the two film industries.
