Academia
Khrushchev’s Cold Summer
By Sean at 30 December, 2009, 11:00 am
Studies of the Soviet gulag encompass a cottage industry of its own in Russian historiography. Since 1991, a torrent of studies have been published examining the gulag’s construction, management, memory, and legacy. Few, however, have delved into how Soviet citizens reacted to the return of over 4 million prisoners from labor camps and colonies to society between 1953 and 1958. It is for this reason that Miriam Dobson’s Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin is a welcomed and refreshing edition to so-called “Gulag Studies.”
Read More >>Dissecting Kirov’s Murder
By Sean at 15 December, 2009, 11:02 am
Two weeks ago, I did a post on 75 years since the Kirov law. I was happy to find that the New Times published an interview with Matthew Lenoe whose forthcoming book, Kirov’s Murder and Soviet History, is a hefty reexamination of the famous assassination. Below is a translation I did of the interview.
From the Komsomol Archive
By Sean at 14 December, 2009, 6:28 am
Today, I began research on Komsomol participation in collectivization and found this little tidbit in the archive.
Read More >>The Kirov Law at 75
By Sean at 2 December, 2009, 2:07 am
Yesterday, December 1, was 75 years since the assassination of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad Party Organization, and Stalin ally. It was on the night of December 1, 1934 that a certain Leonid Nikolaev, a disgruntled party worker, shot Kirov in the secretary’s third floor office. Nikolaev was immediately caught and interrogated [...]
Read More >>Revolutionary Manliness
By Sean at 2 November, 2009, 12:51 pm
For those interested in a taste of my academic work, I’ve contributed an entry called “Revolutionary Manliness” to the Soviet history site Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. If you register, and you should because the site is a wonderful resource especially for instructors, you can check out the accompanying source, “Klasha the Komsomol Girl.” Here [...]
Read More >>There and Back Again
By Sean at 3 October, 2009, 10:00 am
It has been a long haul and I’m slowly crawling out of my hole.
For those who don’t already know, I filed my dissertation, We Shall Refashion Life on Earth! The Political Culture of the Communist Youth League, 1918-1928, on Monday. The process of filing was a bureaucratic nightmare in and of itself. Back and forth [...]
