Autumn 2015

Seminar programme

Venue: Gamla Torget 3, 3rd floor, The Library
Time: Tuesdays, 15.15-17.00 (if not otherwise indicated)

26 Aug (NB! start at 18:30) Debate seminar "Civil society in Russia". Speakers: Lena Jonson (Senior Research Fellow and former head of the Russia Programe at the Swedish Instituteof International Affairs), Tova Höjdestrand (Lund University) and Yulia Gradskova (Södertörn University). Fore more information see invitation.

1 Sep Eugenia Kelbert (University of Passau): “Outside Russian: Patterns In Translingual Poetry and Prose”. Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: English.

From Pushkin’s dalliances in French to such literary giants as Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Brodsky, Russian writers and poets have turned to languages other than Russian for some of their major work. An extreme example, Romain Gary, who makes it clear in his work that he thinks in his native Russian at least sometimes when writing, chose to write a series of bestselling novels, instead, in French, which he first learnt at the age of fourteen, and in English, which he acquired as a war pilot stationed in London.

Does writing in a second language - translingual writing - affect the style and the poetics of a literary work? Does the writer, when he or she switches to a second language, come also to use language and create meaning differently than the same writer would do in the L1? To what extent is this effect generalizable across writers, genres and language choices, or indeed across prose and poetry? How does knowing that the author is writing in a second language help us understand the stylistic landscape of his or her work? In this talk, Eugenia Kelbert will address these questions with reference to the work of Joseph Brodsky, Romain Gary and Vladimir Nabokov, all three of them near-contemporaries and translingual writers who switched to English (and, in Gary’s case, French) at a high point of their career.

The switch to an acquired language, Dr. Kelbert argues, leads the writer to a different emphasis in both style and content, as well as a different relationship to language. In order to better understand this phenomenon, Dr. Kelbert draws on a range of methodological approaches such as translation theory, close reading, psycholinguistics, genetic editing, and distant reading. She shows that a translingual text is marked both by a shift from the given writer’s habitual style and by its place in a particular niche in the adopted language’s literary tradition in ways that make it distinct within the umbrella category of bilingual or multilingual literature. A better understanding of translingual writers also adds, crucially, to a little-studied aspect of a rich and idiosyncratic body of work that, though often categorized out of the Slavic realm, has an important place in the study of Russian literature.

Eugenia Kelbert is currently employed as a Lecturer/Research Associate in Slavic Literatures and Cultures at the University of Passau, Germany. She completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at Yale University in 2015. She has published on translingual work by Joseph Brodsky, Rainer Maria Rilke and Eugene Jolas, among others, and is involved in several ongoing scientific collaborations in Digital Humanities and cognitive poetics. Her other interests include translation theory, modernism, poetry, autobiography, literary genres of the cabaret, and quantitative approaches to literary analysis. Her current project is to turn her dissertation, entitled “Acquiring a Second Language Literature: Patterns in Translingual Writing from Modernism to the Moderns,” into a book-length study of translingual or second-language literature.

4-5 sep (University Main Building, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala) International symposium "Inverted Runes: New Perspectives on Literary Translingualism". For more information visit event webside.

10 Sep Per-Arne Bodin (Stockholm): “Patriark Tichon. Från biografi till ikonogafi” Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: Swedish.

Patriark Tichon utsågs till sitt ämbete 1917 och dog 1925, alltså för 90 år sedan. 1989 blev han kanoniserad. I föredraget analyseras olika alternativa minneskulturer som kan iakttas kring Tichon. I dokument från hans samtid och i memoarer som skildrar 1920-talet framstår patriarken som en martyr, i texter och bilder från nutiden uppfattas han framför allt som en framgångsrik kyrkoledare av samma slag som Nathan Söderblom. Även i dessa anpassas dock skildringen av Tichon efter hagiografins, hymnografins och ikonografins mallar.

Per-Arne Bodin är professor i slaviska språk med litterär inriktning vid Stockholms universitet. Han är en av Europas ledande specialister inom området den ryska kulturen och den ryska ortodoxa traditionen.

15 Sep Volodymyr Paniotto (Kiev International Institute of Sociology, Kiev-Mohyla Academy): “Ukrainian Society Today and Its Main Social Indicators 1994–2014”. Chairman: Stefan Hedlund. Language: English

The presentation is based on the results of polls that have been conducted in Ukraine (mainly by Kiev International Institute of Sociology) over the years from 1994 to 2015. It includes the dynamics of some main social indicators for last 20 years – level of poverty, level of xenophobia, level of trust in Ukrainian society, support of independence of Ukraine and geopolitical orientations (attitude to EU, NATO, Custom Unions), and others. Special attention will be paid to the situation that has evolved over the last few years (Euromaidan, the attitude of Ukrainians to Russia and of Russians to Ukraine, the situation in the Donbas, and migration).

Volodymyr Paniotto is General Director (and co-owner) of one of the leading Ukrainian polling companies, Kiev International Institute of Sociology, which started work almost 25 years ago. He is also professor of sociology at the “Kiev-Mohyla Academy.” His principal works concern research methodology (survey methods, exit-polls methodology, data validity and reliability); modeling and simulation of social processes; poverty assessment; and the dynamics of xenophobia. He has published 10 books and more than 190 articles and book chapters.

17 Sep Violeta Davoliute: “Building a post-soviet nation: discourse of autochthony in late Soviet Lithuania (1970-1990)”. Chairman: Li Bennich-Björkman. Language: English.

In Soviet Lithuania, a discourse of autochthony emerged in the mid sixties and grew to become a significant building block of national identity by the time of the popular movement against Soviet rule in the late eighties. This discourse accentuates the territorial dimension of Lithuanian identity and the intimate connection between the self and the soil. It began by portraying the ostensibly progressive processes of urbanization and the melioration of the countryside during the Khrushchev era as examples of traumatic displacement, no different than the mass deportations and forced collectivization of the Stalin era. The abandoned homestead, overgrown with trees, became a silent witness to the collective trauma of deracination, of foreign occupation and the brutality of the postwar counter-insurgency. What began as a vague sense of nostalgia developed into a politically discourse of collective trauma.

Violeta Davoliutė is Senior Researcher at the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute in Vilnius, and a fellow in Baltic Studies at Yale University for the 2015-2016. She has published a monograph The Making and Breaking of Soviet Lithuania Modernity and Memory in the Wake of War (Routledge, 2014), and has two edited volumes on population displacement in the Baltics in press (Brill; Central European Press). A graduate of Vilnius University (BA) and the University of Toronto (MA, Ph.D), her research has embraced the social and cultural history of Lithuania and the Baltic States, Soviet policies on culture and nationalism, as well as modernism and historical trauma in twentieth century Europe. Her current projects are focused on population displacement in the Baltic States and issues of cultural collaboration under Soviet and Nazi occupation. Dr. Davoliutė is an expert consultant for the European Commission Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency and the Lithuanian Council for Culture, a member of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, and a founding member of the Jerzy Giedroyc Poland-Lithuania Cultural Dialogue and Cooperation Forum.

22 Sep Igor Torbakov (UCRS): ”Becoming Eurasian: Toward the Intellectual Biography of George Vernadsky”. Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: English.

At the center of the seminar’s discussion Dr. Torbakov’s most recent publication – “Becoming Eurasian: Intellectual Odyssey of Georgii Vladimirovich Vernadsky,” in Between Europe and Asia: The Origins, Theories, and Legacies of Russian Eurasianism. Eds. Mark Bassin, Sergei Glebov and Marlene Laruelle (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). This essay intends to investigate Eurasianism as a new post-revolutionary theory of nationalism and focus on how its main ideas were interpreted in the writings of George Vernadsky on Russian and Ukrainian history. Dr. Torbakov proposes to place Vernadsky’s historical research within the context of his biography and Eurasianist worldview. Vernadsky’s historical scholarship was influenced by his personal search for national identity. Internal contradictions and resultant tensions between Ukrainian origin and imperial Weltanschauung prompted him to adopt the Eurasianist theoretical framework. The latter had encouraged Vernadsky to steer away from the traditions of Russian imperial historiography which tended to write the history of Russia as that of a nation-state. In contrast, Vernadsky was among the first to try to craft a historical narrative of Russia as a multiethnic state. The Eurasianist conceptual limitations, however, prevented him from writing a truly comprehensive history of Russia as a multiethnic empire.

Igor Torbakov is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies at Södertörn University in Stockholm. A trained historian, he specializes in Russian and Eurasian history and politics. He was a Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars) in Washington DC; a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University; a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University; a Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study; Senior Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki; and a Visiting Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. His recent publications discussed the history of Russian nationalism, the linkages between Russia’s domestic politics and foreign policy, Russian-Ukrainian relations, and the politics of history and memory wars in Eastern Europe.

24 sep (NB! The seminar will be held at 15:15 in Brusewitz Hall, Gamla torget 6, 3 floor) Alexander Golts: "Russian Military Reform: Consequences for the Crisis in Ukraine". Chairman: Stefan Hedlund. Language: English. The seminar is arranged in cooperation with Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice and Utrikespolitiska Föreningen Uppsala.

In March 2014, Russian Armed Forces managed to deploy thousands of troops on the Ukrainian boarder in a matter of a day or two. This achievement was crucial in the capture of Crimea. The success in rapid deployment was the result of very painful military reforms implemented by former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. As the result of the reform, President Putin received at his disposal up to military 40 units in permanent readiness. Russia had complete military superiority in the post-Soviet space. All of this raises important questions. What are the results of progressive “sectoral” reforms in an authoritarian society? Does it weaken the regime or strengthen it? What are the consequences for European security and especially for Ukraine?

Alexander Golts is a journalist and a leading expert on Russian military affairs. He has an M.A. in journalism from the department of journalism at the Moscow State Lomonosov University. From 1980 until 1996, he worked with the editorial board of Krasnaya zvezda ("Red star"), the military daily paper of Soviet Russia. In 1996, he moved to Itogi, a premier Russian news magazine, where he served as military editor until 2001. Between 2001 and 2004, he worked as deputy editor-in-chief at Yezhenedelnyi zhurnal, a weekly magazine, and from 2004 up to the present ha has worked as deputy editor for website Yezhdneviy Zhurnal. He is also a columnist at Moscow Times. In 2002-2003, Golts was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. He has published two books about Russian military affairs, and co-authored another seven. His most recent publication is “Russia’s Hybrid Warfare - Waging War below the Radar of Traditional Collective Defense” (Rome: NATO Defense College, November 2014).

29 Sep Ilja Viktorov (Stockholm): "Russian financial market after the beginning of the Ukrainian political crisis in 2014”. Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: English.

In 2014, Russia faced a full-scale financial crisis, which culminated in a sharp rouble devaluation in December 2014. The paper (in co-authorship with Alexander Abramov, Higher School of Economics, Moscow) deals with the reaction of the Russian financial market and its main segments to imposition of Western financial sanctions and falling oil prices in 2014. The main conclusion is that domestic imbalances interplayed with external risks which increased vulnerability of the Russian financial system. Using the International Political Economy approach for studies of financial internationalization in developing countries, the paper discusses the role of liberalized capital account for stability of Russian financial markets. It explains also why the devaluation was not followed by a systemic bank crisis unlike what happened in 1998 and 2008. Participation in the seminar does not require specific knowledge of financial markets, and general public interest in financial issues is highly welcome. A printed version of the paper can be sent on request to the corresponding author: ilja.viktorov@ekohist.su.se

Ilja Viktorov holds a PhD in Economic History from Stockholm University. He is currently a researcher affiliated with the Department of Economic History at Stockholm University. His main research interest is in economic development of post-Soviet Russia, especially political economy of Russian financial markets.

Alexander Abramov is a Professor of Finance, Department of Finance, Higher School of Economics in Moscow. His main research interests span over the development of financial markets in Russia, with a special focus on institutional investors including pension and mutual funds.

5-6 Oct International conference "Communicating with States: ‘Underprivileged’ Migrations within the European Union". Venue: Museuam Gustavianum and Campus Blåsenhus. For more information please visit conference website.

6 Oct Freek van der Vet (Aleksanteri Institute/Helsinki University): "Violence and human rights in Russia: how lawyers protect NGOs and victims of grave atrocities at the European Court of Human Rights." Chairman: Stefan Hedlund. Language: English. Chairman: Stefan Hedlund.

Defending human rights in Russia is becoming increasingly challenging. Not all activists, journalists, and lawyers face physical threats, but most have experienced legal constraints to their work—constraints that have deepened from 2012 to 2015. By passing legislation curtailing civic activity, the State Duma increased the fines for participation in unauthorized public demonstrations, modified existing laws on treason, and recriminalized defamation. While we know much about the politics behind these new constraints, little attention has gone out to how human rights lawyers can still protect victims of grave atrocities or NGOs that face administrative charges. For many Russian citizens and NGOs, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a "last chance" to find justice when justice fails at home. How do Russian lawyers and NGOs use the European Court of Human Rights to incite social change within Russia? This presentation will explore the limits and successes of Russian litigation before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of victims of discrimination, torture, and enforced disappearances.

Freek van der Vet is a human rights researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, Finland (PhD, University of Helsinki, 2015). His work examines two questions: 1) how do human rights lawyers use the European Court of Human Rights to help victims of grave atrocities to find effective remedies and 2) how do lawyers use strategic litigation to prevent future violations or incite domestic legal reform? His publications cover the protection of human rights defenders in Russia and the Russian cases before the European Court of Human Rights on the second conflict in Chechnya, on torture, and on discrimination of Roma. At the moment he is working on a study on the protection of human rights lawyers and journalists.

8 Oct Slawomir Kapralski "Jews and the Holocaust in the Social Memory of Poland in the Transition Period”. Chairman: Li Bennich-Björkman. Language: English.

The presentation focuses on the reasons for the negligence of the Holocaust that can be found in the peculiarities of social memory in the countries of East-Central Europe. The presentation will focus on the following points: (1) the legacy of the communist vision of history that has curtailed the murder of the Jews, (2) the (re)emergence of the specific, ethno-cultural Eastern European nationalism with its particularism and antisemitism, (3) the feeling that the historical suffering of non-Jewish East Europeans is not properly recognized in Europe (contrary to the Jewish one), (4) the defensive reactions to the opening of the silenced chapters of the history of collaboration in the Holocaust, (5) the perception of the Holocaust discourse as an instrument of the economic/cultural colonization of Eastern Europe, (6) the contribution of the Holocaust debates to the political divides and unrest. The author will illustrate his argument with the examples of the ways in which Jewish memory has been misrepresented in Poland’s “memoryscapes”. In conclusion, the author will reflect on the processes of ritualization of the cultural memory of the Holocaust and the growing absence of reflection of the fate of the Jews in the communicative memory of the Polish society. The presentation will be based, among others, on the preliminary results of the research project “Tracing Memory: Strategies of Remembering Jewish Culture in Poland’s Galicia” which compares interviews collected 25 years ago with the Poles who witnessed the Holocaust and recently collected interviews with the next generation.

Slawomir Kapralski, Ph.D., is a sociologist and social anthropologist, graduated from the Jagiellonian University, then associated with the Central European University in Prague, Warsaw, and Budapest. At present he is a University Professor at the Pedagogical University of Krakow and Lecturer at the Center for Social Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences and Lancaster University. Since the end of 1980s he has been involved in various research activities and educational initiatives in the field of Polish-Jewish relations and among Roma communities of East/Central Europe. He is the author of A Nation from the Ashes. The memory of Genocide and Roma Identity (2012) and Values and Sociological Knowledge (1997), as well as a co-author of Roma in Auschwitz (2011) and the editor of The Jews in Poland (1999). In 2013 he has been a short-term visiting researcher at UCRS.

13 Oct Mykola Riabchuk (The Institute for Human Sciences/Vienna): "Vatniki" vs. "ukropy". Ethnic othering and stereotyping during the Russo-Ukrainian war”. Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: English.

Propaganda is an important element of any warfare, and the pending Russo-Ukrainian war, however “hybrid” and muted in euphemisms, is no exception. This presentation addresses three interrelated problems. First, it examines how old interethnic stereotypes, of both colonial and anticolonial nature, are employed by the warring parties in their propagandistic efforts. Second, the presentation addresses the problem of cognitive dissonance caused on both sides by the need to fight the enemy that has been described for decades as a “brotherly nation”. Then thirdly, the presentation relates to the asymmetric character of the Russo-Ukrainian encounter. This refers not only to the vast differences in national resource endowments, but also to the purported advantage that a heavily centralized, authoritarian Russian state has vis-à-vis a relatively liberal, open and pluralistic Ukraine in terms of producing, coordinating and disseminating warmongering propaganda.

Mykola Riabchuk is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Political and Nationalities’ Studies in Kyiv and a lecturer at the Center of East European Studies, University of Warsaw. He penned many books and articles on various problems of postcommunist transformation, national identity and nationalism, including De la petit Russie a l’Ukraine (Paris 2003), Die reale un die imaginierte Ukraine (Berlin 2006), Gleichschaltung. Authoritarian Consolidation in Ukraine, 2010-2012 (Kyiv 2012), and Ukraina. Syndrom postkolonialny (Wroclaw 2015).

20 Oct Wilhelm Bogucki: ”Perspectives on Economc Growth and Economic Development in Ukraine. Transdiscplinary Approaches”. Chairman: Li Bennich-Björkman. Language: English.

Ever since Ukraine has become an independent state in 1991 it was showing quite modest dynamics of economic growth and economic development despite the fact that the country had quite favorable initial conditions and was the economic leader in the former Soviet Union due to its geographical location, high industrialization, abundant well-educated human capital, natural resources endowment, etc. Ukraine has not managed to use the 24 years of its independence so as to introduce full-fledged free market reforms so as to efficiently restructure and modernize its economy and make these changes irreversible. Instead, the economy has been captured by oligarchic clans, corruption has become pervasive, shadow economy has grown up to 60% of GDP. In 2014-2015 Ukraine has experienced major political and the resulting economic and social shocks, which may disturb economic, political and social equilibria and hopefully open a chance for the positive change in the form of economic reforms. The presentation will focus on outlining the basic elements of the suggested transdisciplinary approach to understanding the possibilities and the limits of social, political and economic change as applied to Ukraine. Transdisciplinary approach to understanding change will be discussed in the context of other approaches, such as cultural, institutional, rational choice and game theory. As a conclusion, the theoretical insights will be matched with empirical data so as to outline the possible scenarios of economic development in Ukraine.

Wilhelm Bogucki holds MA in English Philology from the National Chernivtsi University, Ukraine and a Master of Arts in Society and Culture (Lancaster University and Central European University. Currently Wilhelm Bogucki is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School for Social Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His main areas of interest include “institutionalism” in economics and political science, social capital and trust research, economic sociology.

CANCELLED

23 Oct (NB! Friday, 13:00-15:00) Round table discussion "Russo-Ukranian relations seen through the prism of the history of literature". Participants: Oleh Ilnytzkyj, Natalia Pylypiuk and Mykola Riabchuk. Moderator: Elena Namli. For more information please download the invitation.

27 Oct Roundtable discussion "Developments in Ukraine". Introductory comments on economic developments will be made by Professor Stefan Hedlund, and on politics and national cohesion by Dr. Igor Torbakov. The main purpose of the discussion is to take stock of the current situation, of the reasons why an essential bargaining problem could degenerate into war, and of what may be next. Moderator: Elena Namli.

NB! CANCELLED! RESCHEDULED ON 10 NOV

27 Oct Justyna Zając (Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw): “Poland’s relations with Ukraine and Russia”. Chairman: Stefan Hedlund. Language: English.

Poland's relations with Ukraine and Russia are strictly interconnected. Poland has high stakes in the preservation of an independent, sovereign and friendly Ukraine, since it serves as an important buffer between Russia and Poland. Were Ukraine to fall back under Russian influence, this buffer would be removed and Poland's security would deteriorate. For this reason in the post-Cold War period Poland approved a policy of strong support of Ukraine. Instead Russia considers Ukraine as its sphere of strategic interests. From a realist perspective, the current Ukraine crisis proves that historical rivalry between Poland and Russia over Ukraine continues. Poland's strong support of Ukraine has resulted in the deterioration of Polish-Russian relations. In consequence Poland's national security has also deteriorated. The new National Security Strategy of the Republic of Poland, adopted in November 2014, indicated for the first time since the end of the Cold War that Russia creates a military threat. The talk will address all these aspects of current Poland's relations with Ukraine and Russia in a context of changes of the international system.

Justyna Zając is professor of international relations at the University of Warsaw. She was a visiting scholar at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, Indiana University, and Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de Science Po. She served on the National Security Strategic Review Commission appointed by the President of the Republic of Poland and was a member of the Steering Committee of the Standing Group on International Relations, European Consortium for Political Research. She is the author of several books and articles on Transatlantic security system, the European Union, U.S. foreign policy, and Poland’s foreign and security policy.

29 Oct Vasily Naumov (Belarus): “Belarusian Maidan in 2006. A New Social Movement Approach to the Tent Camp Protest in Minsk”. Chairman: Li Bennich-Björkman. Language: English

The seminar will be devoted to the specificity of social activism in Belarus in 1990-2006. The author brings to light the ways by which new information and communications technologies change the scope, ideology and structure of contemporary social movements. In particular, he analyzes the Tent Camp protest movement that emerged in Minsk at the October Square as a result of the falsification of the presidential elections in March 2006. One of the innovative aspects of the book is the application of the New Social Movement (NSM) approach elaborated by Melucci to the analysis of the “creativity” of the Tent Camp.

Vasil Navumau completed his PhD at the Graduate School for Social Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences, having defended thesis entitled "Social Activism in Contemporary Belarus: A New Social Movement Approach to the Tent Camp Protest Action in Minsk, 2006." Currently he is an editor of Belarusian web-based journal e-gov.by, devoted to discussion and popularization of ideas in the sphere of public sector innovation, e-government formation and e-participation enhancement in Belarus. His research interests focus on the ways new ICTs influence the transformation of repertoire, scope and ideology of social movements and the ways they can contribute to the formation of more transparent, participative and inclusive government.

30 Oct (NB! at 13:15, Museum Gustavianum, Auditorium Minus) PhD thesis defence of "Bildet sett fra innsiden: Ikonoklastiske og matematiske konsepter i Florenskijs omvendte perspektiv" by Fabian Heffermehl. The defence will be held in Norwegian and Swedish.

3 Nov Marina Nisotskaya (Department of Political Science, The Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg): “Bureaucratic Structure and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from the Russian Regions”. Chairman: Stefan Hedlund. Language: English.

The presentation deals with the impact of organizational design of public bureaucracies on such valuable social outcomes as entrepreneurship, economic growth and corruption in the empirical milieu of Russia’s regions. Utilizing novel data from an expert survey on bureaucratic structure and bureaucratic behavior in Russia’s regions, the results of the analysis suggest that the presence of a consolidated Weberian bureaucracy (meritocratic recruitment and tenure security) is robustly associated with a number of valuable social outcomes.

Marina Nistotskaya is a senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Göteborg University and a research fellow at the Quality of Government Institute. She received her MA and PhD in Political Science from Central European University. Her research interests are in the area of quality of government and development, and she has published in Governance, Environment and Planning C and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.

9 Nov (17:30-19:30, Ihresalen, Engelska parken) "Ett mångstämmigt monument" ett samtal kring årets nobelpristagare i litteratur, Svetlana Aleksijevitj. Medverkande: Kajsa Öberg Lindsten och Staffan Julén. Se inbjudan för mer information. Evenemanget arrangeras i samarbete med Språkvetenskapliga fakulteten.

10 Nov Justyna Zając (Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw): “Poland’s relations with Ukraine and Russia”. Chairman: Stefan Hedlund. Language: English.

17 Nov Andrei Semenov: "Political Opportunity Structure in Post-Soviet Context: Dynamics of Contention in Russian Region (2008-2012)". Chairman: Stefan Hedlund. Language: English

Russian society seems to oscillate between prolonged periods of quiescence and abrupt mass mobilization: revolutions and dramatic societal change in political order turns into periods of relative patience and demobilisation. In his talk, drawing on political opportunity structure (POS) literature and newly assembled database on protest events in Russia, Andrey Semenov is going to present the analysis of twists and turns of contention in Russia with the focus on interactions between the state and the protesters. Specific attention will be given to the cases of Perm and Tyumen – two Russian regions with relatively open and relatively closed POS respectively. Alongside with the more nuanced picture of dynamics of contention in Russia, the study presents some casual mechanisms explaining cycles of protest in the country.

Andrey Semenov holds candidate of science degree in politics from Perm State University, he is a senior researcher at the Center for Comparative History and Politics Studies, Perm State University and co-chair of Standing Research Committee for institutional Studies, Russian Association for Political Science. His research interests include institutional theory, contentious politics, postcommunist transition, and democratisation. His current research projects are focused on the dynamics of contention in Russian regions and organisational dimension of civil society.

1 Dec Ilya Vinkovetsky (Vancouver): “The Making of a National Drink: Tea as a Broker of Cultural Contact and Russia’s Window on Asia”. Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: English.

Tea has for centuries been intimately identified with Russian culture. Russia is known for its samovars and tea kettles, and tea is nearly universally acknowledged as something akin to Russia’s national beverage. Yet, in spite of this image, tea has always been an imported commodity. This paper examines how a colonial product, grown and packaged in southern China, and transported to Moscow by a continental route across Eurasia (via China, the Gobi Desert, Siberia, the Urals, and the Kama-Volga basin) became an essential drink of choice not only among Russia’s aristocrats but among the people as a whole. It also explores how the tea trade with China has affected Russia’s interactions with the outside world. Finally, in order to situate the Russian experience in a broader context, the paper considers the place of tea in Great Britain, another nation that has fashioned a distinctly tea-infused culture based on its imperial connections to the Far East.

Ilya Vinkovetsky is Associate Professor at the Department of History, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). His research interests include merchant networks in the Russian empire and abroad, the importation of American and Asian products into nineteenth-century Russia, roads and ship lanes, companies as contractors of empire, Russia in the Balkans and colonialism.

3 Dec Lansering av Susanna Rabow-Edlings bok “Married to the Empire. Three Governor's Wives in Russian America 1829-1864”. Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: English.

The Russian Empire’s American holding, Alaska, was governed by men who fought to bring trade as well as “civilization” and “enlightenment” to the colony. Many histories tell and retell that story, but there’s another side. In 1829 the Russian-America Company decreed that women would be central to their “civilizing mission.” Any governor appointed after that date had to have a wife. Married to the Empire. Three Governor’s Wives in Russian Alaska sets the context for that RAC decision and explores the lives of three governor’s wives: Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholén, and Anna Furuhjelm. Each woman left behind writings that reveal both personal and cultural struggles—and insights—while working to fulfill the mission that brought them to Novo-Archangel’sk.

Susanna Rabow-Edling is associate professor in Political Science at Uppsala University and a senior research fellow at the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Her research interests include nationalism, liberalism, gender and imperial history.

4 Dec (NB! Friday at 10:00-12:00) Sofie Bedford and Laurent Vinatier (UCRS): "Opposition as 'Work in Progress'. Examining recent elections in Belarus and Azerbaijan". Chairman: Li Bennich-Björkman. Language: English.

Elections in electoral authoritarian regimes are generally minimally inclusive, minimally pluralistic, and minimally open. Still they are necessary for the rulers of these states as the key to their democratic facade lays in displaying representative institutions. As such elections pose a dilemma for the democratic opposition. On the one hand the election campaign is often their only opportunity to get sanctioned access to the public, on the other through their participation in an election where the outcome is known beforehand they appear to support the democratic charade. This seminar focuses on the recent elections in Azerbaijan (parliamentary) and Belarus (presidential) and more specifically on the ways in which oppositional actors in these countries choose to tackle this predicament. Based on our analysis and comparison of respective electoral strategies and motivations we will discuss what they can tell us about the character of ‘opposition’ as well as about what role elections can be said to play in this type of context.

11-12 Dec (Gamla torget 3, 3 floor, UCRS Library) International conference "A Decade of Georgian Reforms: Miracle or Mirage?". To find out more download conference programme. If you wish to attend the conference, please sign up by email to Christopher Marshall christopher.marshall@ucrs.uu.se by Thursday, December 10. For further information, please contact conference organizer Barbara Lehmbruch barbara.lehmbruch@ucrs.uu.se.

This conference brings together a multidisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners to take stock of the Georgian economic and administrative reform experience since 2004. Once widely regarded as a “failed state,” the radicalism of Georgian institutional reforms saw it skyrocket to the top of international good governance indices. At the same time, deficiencies in the original reform model – increasing authoritarianism, a lopsided justice system and what has been described as a single-minded attention to economic liberalization rather than social equity or economic development– became dramatically visible as well.

Georgia is thus an excellent most-extreme case setup for the academic study of post-communist transition, helping to identify constraints and opportunities of significance beyond the country itself. On the policy level, the Georgian experience is increasingly applied as a practical model to be imitated both within and beyond the region. This makes a critical analysis of the successes, failures and above all preconditions of the Georgian reforms all the more vital.

The conference will cover the Georgian reform experience across different sectors as well as across time, pinpointing goal conflicts and preconditions for success and failure.

CANCELLED! 15 Dec Irina Karlsohn (UCRS): ”Александр Солженицын: История и утопия”. Chairman: Elena Namli. Language: Russian.

The seminar «Александр Солженицын: история и утопия» examines attempts by Alexander Solzhenitsyn to influence the course of Russian history. Dr. Irina Karlsohn will discuss the writer’s view of the historical process, as well as the results and consequences of his attempts, and how we can assess Solzhenitsyn’s efforts.

Irina Karlsohn holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Gothenburg (2010). Karlsohn is currently Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and Assistant Professor of Russian at Dalarna University, Sweden. In her ongoing research, Karlsohn examines different aspects of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s conception of history.

19 Dec (10:15 Brusewitz Hall, Gamla torget 6) PhD thesis defence of "Transformative Power Challenged: EU Membership Conditionality in the Western Balkans Revisited" by Jessica Giandomenico.