October 11-12, 2024. Princeton University
The Soviet Union emerged in a world of empires and nation-states where hierarchies of races and ethnicities were ingrained in political structures and cultural norms. In addition, the USSR found itself a successor to a settler-colonial empire that spanned much of the Eurasian continent.
Following the Civil war, the Bolsheviks embarked on bold socialist experiments with nation-building and international development, combining traditions of internationalism with large-scale industrialization campaigns and cultural revolution.
SovMode-2024, the first in the three-workshop series SovMode: Reconsidering Modernity and Socialism, funded by the Princeton University Humanities Council, explores the challenges that imperialism and socialism posed to each other in local and global contexts during the short twentieth century.
Workshop Program
October 11, 2024
SESSION 1. EMPIRE. NATION. CLASS.
Георгий Сафаров, Восток и революция. // Г. Сафаров. Колониальнаяреволюция (ОпытТуркестана). [1921]. Reprint: Oxford: The Society for Central Asian Studies, 1985. Pp. 9–29.
Discussants: Dmitrii Blyshko; Alessandro Iandolo; Anna Linetskaya; Gregory Martin; Kulshat Medeouva; Kevin Platt; Liya Xie
Moderator: Alexey Golubev
Георгий Сафаров. Национальный вопрос и пролетариат. Изд. второе. Москва: Главполитпросвет, 1923.
- Гл. 7. Национальный вопрос и гражданская война (210–250);
- Гл. 8. Национальная политика Советской власти и РКП (250–267);
- Гл. 9. Национальный вопрос в переходную эпоху от капитализма к коммунизму (267–285).
Discussants: Michael Brinley; Volodymyr Ishchenko; Artemy Kalinovsky; Kulshat Medeouva; Esa Purschke; Amir Saifullin; Anna Whittington
Moderator: Serguei Oushakine
SESSION 2. DECOLONIZATION. MODERNIZATION. DEVELOPMENT.
Agha Shaukat Ali. Modernization of Soviet Central Asia. An Example of Socialist Construction. Lahore: The Penjab University Press, 1964.
- Preface.
- Ch. 3. Basmachi Movement – Formation of Central Asian Republics (31–40).
- Ch. 6. Cultural Development of Central Asia (87–95)
- Conclusion.
Discussants: Nathan Goldstone; Bradley Gorski; Artemy Kalinovsky; Ekaterina Kulinicheva; Evan Miller; Nazerke Mukhlissova; Vladimir Prudnikov; Oscar Sanchez-Sibony; Anna Whittington
Moderator: Alexey Golubev
Artemy M. Kalinovsky. Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018.
- Ch. 5. Nurek, “A City You Can Write About” (117–143);
- Ch. 7. The Countryside Electrified (175–198);
- Conclusion: A Dream Deferred (244–255).
Discussants: Friedrich Asschenfeldt; Dmitrii Blyshko; Michael Brinley; Mark Lipovetsky; Masha Salazkina; Erik Scott; Yana Skorobogatov; Alexey Shvyrkov; Ziqian Zheng
Moderator: Serguei Oushakine
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY RONALD SUNY:
“The Dilemmas of a ‘Socialist’ Empire: The USSR and its Mission civilisatrice."
October 12, 2024
SESSION 3. SOCIALISM & NONCAPITALISM
Alessandro Iandolo. Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022.
- Ch. 2. Brave New World: The Soviet Union and the Making of the Third World (39–61);
- Ch. 3. First Contact (62–91);
- Ch. 4. The Heart of the Matter (92–146);
- Ch. 6. The End of the Affair (197–219).
Discussants: Juliane Fürst; Jochen Hellbeck; Maxim Matusevich; Masha Salazkina; Oscar Sanchez-Sibony; Yana Skorobogatov; Nikolaus Vitzthum
Moderator: Serguei Oushakine
SESSION 4. INDUSTRY. VIOLENCE. CINEMA.
Masha Salazkina, World Socialist Cinema Alliances, Affinities, and Solidarities in the Global Cold War. Oakland: University of California Press, 2023.
- Ch. 6. World Cinema of Socialist Industrial Modernity (176–204).
- Ch. 8. World Socialist Cinema of Armed Struggle (242–274)
Discussants: Bradley Gorski; Mikhail Grechko; Jochen Hellbeck; Alessandro Iandolo; Maxim Matusevich; Kevin Platt
Moderator: Alexey Golubev
SESSION 5. UNIVERSALITY. DISUNITY. CITIZENSHIP.
Anna Whittington, A House Divided: Glasnost and the Fate of the Soviet People, 1985–1991 (unpublished work).
Discussants: Juliane Fürst; Sofia Guerra; Volodymyr Ishchenko; Mark Lipovetsky; Erik Scott; Rony Suny
Moderator: Serguei Oushakine
FILM SCREENING:
“Once Upon a Time … the Nile”
(“al-Nīl wa al-Ḥayāẗ”).
Dir. YOUSSEF CHAHINE, Egypt/USSR, 1968.
GENERAL DISCUSSION