MEMORY, TRADITIONS, AND IDENTITY, St Petersburg, 11 April 2008

National Identity in Russia from 1961 : Traditions & Deterritorialisation

Conferences

‘SOVIET MEMORY’

REMEMBERING THE SOVIET UNION - MEMORY, TRADITIONS, AND IDENTITY, 1917-1991

11 April 2008

European University, St Petersburg

This one-day conference - organised as part of the project ‘National Identity in Russia from 1961: Traditions and Deterritorialisation’ (www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/russian/nationalism),  and to be held at the European University, 3 Gagarinskaya Street, St Petersburg - explores several themes in the history of memory and traditions in the Soviet era (including both the early Soviet and the late Soviet periods). These include: the role of memory in establishing revolutionary legitimacy; the struggle with the ‘backward’ past. and, on the other hand, the celebration of  pre-revolutionary ‘Great Russian’ traditions; the heritage of pre-Soviet cultural institutions in the Soviet period and the institutionalisation of memory; cultural practices connected with the preservation and dissemination of tradition; and recollections of the past in the post-Soviet period. The working languages of the conference will be Russian and English. All are welcome to attend. 

Organisers:

Albert Baiburin, Andy Byford, Catriona Kelly 

Sponsors:

Arts and Humanities Research Council

European Humanities Research Centre, University of Oxford

Programme

10.00 Opening of the conference

10.20 Session 1: Revolutionary Memory

 Boris Kolonitsky (EU-SPb). ‘Admiral Kolchak as a “Son of Lieutenant Schmidt”’

 Steve Smith (Essex) ‘The Bolsheviks and the Heritage of Popular Orthodoxy’

11.50-12.10 Coffee break

12.10-13.40 Session 2: Institutions of Memory, Memory of Institutions

 Albert Baiburin (EU-SPb) ‘The Pre-History of the Soviet Passport (1918-1932)’

 Catriona Kelly (Oxford) ‘“Are We to ‘Correct’ History?” Debates on the Preservation of Monuments in Leningrad, 1961-1991’

13.40-15.00 Lunch

15.00-16.30 Session 3: Practices of Memory

 Boris Firsov (EU-SPb) ‘Leningrad Collectors as a Phenomenon of Cultural History’

 Andy Byford (Oxford) ‘“The Last Soviet Generation” in Britain’

16.30-16.50 Coffee break

16.50-18.20 Session 4: Narrating the Soviet Past

 Anna Kushkova (EU-SPb) ‘Attitudes to the Soviet Past as Expressed in Memories of Food Shortages’

 Tatiana Voronina (EU-SPb) ‘Remembering the Baikal-Amur Railway Line: Autobiographical Interviews about Experiences on BAM and their Dominant Themes’