Is the Soviet Union really dead? Nostalgia for the USSR lives on in the hearts and minds of some Russians, unsettled by change, who long for the social benefits of the Communist system, ignoring the repression that so many endured. Even some young Russians are attracted by retro Soviet images. What explains this phenomenon?
CERES’ “Russia Brief” webinar with Jill Dougherty looks for answers.
About the Panelists:
Dr. Bradley Gorski is an Assistant Professor of contemporary Russian literature and culture in the Department of Slavic Languages at Georgetown University. He has published on post-Soviet bestsellers, late-Soviet hipsters, and medieval festivals and conservative aesthetics in today’s Russia. He is also an active critic of contemporary Russian literature for World Literature Today, Public Books, the Russian Review, and other publications.
Dr. Kathleen (Kelly) E. Smith is Professor of Teaching in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is also currently Associate Director of Georgetown’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies. A political scientist, she has written two books on the role of memory in Russian politics–Remembering Stalin’s Victims: Popular Memory and the End of the USSR and Mythmaking in the New Russia: Politics & Memory During the Yeltsin Era. She recently wrote a political and cultural history of the year 1956 in Russia and is currently researching the transformation of the Soviet “Writers’ Town” of Peredelkino from its creation under Stalin to its present post-market incarnation.
This event is sponsored by Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES) and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Accommodation requests related to a disability should be sent toceres@georgetown.edu by 11/26/2021. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill requests. Additionally, the presentation will be recorded and a captioned version will also be made available shortly after at CERES Georgetown’s YouTube channel.