International Scholarly Conference "Looking Back, Looking Forward: New Directions in World War II Research"

The conference took place on March 17 and was dated for fifth anniversary of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences

Participants in the conference discussed the contemporary state of historical knowledge about World War II and its role in Russia’s twentieth-century history. How did the war affect the Soviet state and society? What influence did material considerations, ideology, and cultural images have on the course of the war on the Eastern Front? How are our understandings of the war being changed by new sources on and contemporary research into this epochal conflict? What new issues do researchers into that period face? These and other questions were considered at the conference, which is timed to coincide with the five-year anniversary of the founding of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences. The conference was concluded with an informal report on the center’s scholarly activities over the past five years.