News and events

Study Group on The Russian Revolution

Annual Conference, 3 to 5 January 2024

Hartley Suite, Building 38, Highfield Campus, University of Southampton, UK

Conference theme: Decolonization in the history of the Russian Revolution

Languages: English, Russian
Format: in person and online
Organizers: George Gilbert, Lara Douds

Wednesday 3 January

12:30 to1:30pm: Welcome, Lunch, and Registration

1:30 to 3:00pm Panel 1: From the Centre to Periphery and Back in the Soviet Twenties: A Threefold Approach

Chair: Geoffrey Swain

Rukya Mandrile, The smithy group and cultural decolonisation. Longing for nature, escaping the city

Virginia Pili, Opening the Pandora's Box: the national question in 1922-23

Monica Puglia, Competing for the desert: Peschanaya uchitel’nica by Andrei Platonov

3.00 to 3.30pm: Coffee, tea, and biscuits

3.30 to 4:00pm: Special event. Alistair Dickens, Mark Vincent, So long the specification? Teaching Stalinism beyond the textbook.

4.15 to 6.15 pm Panel 2: Comparative and International Approaches to the Russian Revolution

Chair: Daniel Orlovsky

Dmytro Bondarenko, Assassination as a Casus Belli or a Factor of Revolution and Counter-Revolution: The Cases of Sarajevo (28 June 1914) and Moscow (6 July 1918). A Comparative Analysis

Raquel Varela, Roberto della Santa, The Carnation Revolution and the Russian Revolution: Possible Comparisons?

Marie-Josée Lavallée, Preparing and Securing the Russian Revolution: Three Phases and Modalities of Bolshevik Involvement in the Revolutionary Movement in Austria, 1916-1919

Evgeny Sergeev, British Interpretations of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ vs. ‘Communist Militarism’ in the 1920s. The cases of Iran and Afghanistan

End of day one

6.15pm: Pub drinks, followed at 7.30pm by dinner at Oxford Brasserie, 33-34 Oxford St, Southampton, SO14 3DS

Thursday 4 January

09:00 to11:00am Panel 3: Revolutionary Politics

Chair: Lara Green

Lars T. Lih, Odnorodnoe: On the Legitimacy of the October Revolution

Charters Wynn, Lenin’s War Cabinet

Alice K. Pate, The Working Intelligentsia and the Nationalities Question, 1905-1917

Lara Douds, ‘Всесоюзный староста’: Constructing ‘Kalinych’ and his Priemnaia in the Soviet public imagination in the 1920s

11:00 to 11:30am: Coffee, tea, and biscuits

11:30am to 1:00pm Panel 4: Soviet Culture

Chair: Monica Puglia

James Ryan, Marx’s White Shirt: Vladimir Zazubrin’s The Chip (1923) and the Boundaries of Early Soviet Literature

Olga Gradinaru, M. Sholokhov’s Russian Revolution in Subsequent Film Adaptations

Alexander Statiev, Soviet Adventure Tourism as an Aspect of the Cultural Revolution

1:00 to 2:00pm: Lunch (Hartley Suite)

2:00 to 3:00pm: SGRR AGM.

3:00 to 3:30pm: Coffee, tea, and biscuits

3:30 to 5:30pm Panel 5: New Approaches to Ukraine and the Caucasus

Chair: Charters Wynn

Mateusz Majman, Local Responses to the Russian Revolution in the North Caucasus: A Case Study of the Mountain Jewish Community in Dagestan

Roman Osharov, The Caucasus and Central Asia under Russian rule – transfer of people and knowledge on Russia’s imperial borderlands, 1870-1890

Konstantin Tarasov, ‘If Shevchenko were alive, he would probably be "with us..."’ Political struggle for appropriation of the Taras Shevchenko’s image, 1911-1921

Serhiy Blavatskyy, Dmytro Dontsov and the Bureau of Nationalities of Russia (Bern, 1916–1917): A perspective into decolonization in the Russian Empire

5:30 to 6:30pm Roundtable: Russian Historical Research and the War in Ukraine

Chair: George Gilbert

Speakers: Alice K. Pate, Michał P. Sadłowski, Wim Coudenys

End of day 2

7:00pm: Dinner at Ennio’s, Town Quay, Southampton SO14 2AR

Friday 5 January

09:30 to 11:00am Panel 6: Gender and the Study of the Revolution

Chair: Sofya Anisimova

Olga Shnyrova, Global Gender Policy of the Third International on the Service of the World Revolution: Regional Peculiarities and Hierarchies

Natalya Gafizova, The imperial underside of the women's movement in Russia at the end of the 19^th – beginning of 20^th century: on the example of the analysis of the integration of women's organizations of the Russian Empire into International Women's Council

Sophia Manukova, The Russian Revolution of 1917, the MI5 Agents and Their Russian Female Associates

11:00 to11:30am: Coffee, tea, and biscuits

11:30 to1:00pm Roundtable: The Centenary of Lenin’s Death

Chair: Geoffrey Hosking

Speakers: Dan Orlovsky, Lara Douds, James Ryan, Chris Read, Lars T. Lih.

1:00 to 2:00pm: Lunch (Hartley Suite)

2:00 to 4:00pm Panel 7: Under-Researched Aspects of Russia’s First World War

Chair: Marie-Josée Lavallée

Sam Foster, The Macedonian Front and the End of Imperial Russia, 1915 – 1919: Forgotten Campaign or an Early Flashpoint?

Wim Coudenys, A dubious go-between? V.P. Shelgunov and the fate of ‘displaced’ Russians and Belgians after WWI

Jamie Bryson, The Expansion of the Enemy: The Okhrana in 1915

Sofya Anisimova, Units of ‘Maimed Soldiers’ in Revolutionary Russia, 1917-1918

End of conference

With thanks to our sponsors: BASEES, and the School of History, University of Southampton.

In association with CEEES (Centre for East European and Eurasian Studies, University of Southampton)

The Authoritarian International: Tracing How Authoritarian Regimes Learn in the Post-Soviet Space

Stephen Hall Zoom seminar (Russia book)

Wednesday, 29 November, 6 to 7:30pm BST Eventbrite link to register.

In his new book 'The Authoritarian International: Tracing How Authoritarian Regimes Learn in the Post-Soviet Space,' Stephen Hall argues that democracies can preserve their norms and values from increasing attacks and backsliding by better understanding how authoritarian regimes learn.

He focuses on the post-Soviet region, investigating two established autocracies, Belarus and Russia, and two hybrid-regimes, Moldova and Ukraine, with the aim of explaining the concept of authoritarian learning and revealing the practices that are developed and the sources of that learning.

There are clear signs of collaboration between countries in developing best survival practices between authoritarian-minded elites. Learning does not just occur between states, rather it can happen at the intra-state level, with elites learning lessons from previous regimes in their own countries.

Hall highlights the horizontal nature of this learning, with authoritarian-minded elites developing methods from a range of sources to ascertain the best practices for survival. Post-Soviet regional organisations are crucial for developing and sharing survival practices as they provide 'learning rooms' and training exercises.

Speaker Bio

Stephen G F Hall is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics. He completed his PhD in political science at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London Before joining Bath, Stephen was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge and taught at the Higher School of Economics – National Research University, St. Petersburg.

He has published extensively in Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, East European Politics, Post-Communist Economies, Russian Politics, and the Journal of Eurasian Studies.

Masculinity and Postsocialism – Workshop

Friday 8 September 2023, 08:45 to 18:00 and on Zoom

This workshop seeks to generate comparative, inter-disciplinary perspectives on the changing shape of masculinities across post-socialist Eastern Europe and Eurasia, reflecting equally on its shared history and on the divergent developments taking place both between and within countries across the region. Its contributors will explore, inter alia: the different ways in which masculinity has been re-constructed and mobilised – by states, by markets – across Eastern Europe and Eurasia from the latter years of state socialism and its collapse to the present day; the impact of these constructions on gender and sexual relations and inequalities, including in spheres such as employment, social policy, the family and domestic violence; the ways men with differing social characteristics have negotiated these constructs in their everyday lives, and relations between them; and the various relations between national and global constructions of hegemonic masculinity across the region.

Full programme

Murray Building, Highfield Campus, University of Southampton

Registration for in-person or online attendance

Call for papers

Call for Papers

Annual Conference of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution – 50 years of the SGRR

The 49th Annual Conference of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution (SGRR) will take place from 3 to 5 January 2024 at the University of Southampton, UK.

The Study Group was established in 1973 and its aim is to promote new approaches to the study of the Russian Revolution, focusing on the period between 1880 and 1932. Affiliated to the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES), the Study Group possesses a truly international membership. The Study Group and its annual conferences boast strong representation from scholars based in the UK, EU, the USA and Russia.

We invite individual papers or full panel proposals on any aspect of the history of the Russian Empire, revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union from 1880-1932, and we welcome a variety of (inter) disciplinary perspectives.

This year’s conference considers the theme of decolonisation in the history of the Russian Revolution. We seek to unite well-established and more recent research approaches in pursuit of this aim. To do this, this year’s iteration seeks to unite long-standing members of the SGRR and their perspectives on how the field has changed, and scholars at the earlier end of the careers, inviting new perspectives on the history of the Revolution that show cutting-edge research. Among other questions, the SGRR asks how study of the revolution has changed, and how things are likely to develop in the next couple of years against the backdrop of Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine.

The conference languages are English and Russian.

All those interested in attending and/or presenting papers should contact the conference organiser Dr George Gilbert at g.gilbert@soton.ac.uk and Dr Lara Douds, Secretary of the SGRR at lara.douds@northumbria.ac.uk

Paper proposals should consist of a short abstract of c. 250 words, as well as the contact details and institutional affiliation of the author(s).

The call for papers will close on 1 September 2023. Papers will need to be submitted in December to allow for pre-circulation amongst the group before the conference.

We are very keen to encourage postgraduate participation in the SGRR. Postgraduates presenting papers at the Study Group may be eligible to apply for a subsidy of some of the conference costs if they are unable to obtain other funding.

The Authoritarian International: Tracing How Authoritarian Regimes Learn in the Post-Soviet Space

CEEES Inaugural Seminar Series – War in Ukraine: Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future

Western estimates of Russian military capabilities before and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine – Bettina Renz, Professor of International Security, University of Nottingham.

This event will take place from 17:00-18:00 on Wednesday 8 February and is online only (Zoom). Please use this link to Eventbrite to register.

Russian reactions to the war: defensive consolidation and resistance’ – Jeremy Morris, Professor of Global and Russian Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark

This event will take place from 15:00-16:00 on Wednesday 14 December and is online only (Zoom).Please use this link to Eventbrite to register.

Read about our Study group on the Russian revolution Annual Conference, 4 – 6 January 2023

Call for Papers

Annual Conference of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution

The 48th Conference of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution will take place from 4-6 January 2023 at the University of Southampton, UK.

The Study Group was established in 1973 and it aim to promote new approaches to the study of the Russian Revolution, focusing on the period between 1880 and 1932. Affiliated to the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES), the Study Group possesses a truly international membership. The Study Group and its annual conferences boast strong representation from scholars based in the UK, EU, the USA and Russia.

We invite individual papers or full panel proposals on any aspect of the history of the Russian Empire, revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union from 1880-1932, and we welcome a variety of (inter) disciplinary perspectives.

In the context of Putin’s abuse of history in the rhetoric of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and because our conference falls within days of the centenary of the creation of the USSR in December 1922, this year’s theme is ‘Brotherhood of Nations? Centenary Perspectives on the creation of the USSR.’ We hope to organize one or more sessions that aim to de-colonise the history of the ‘Russian’ revolution by inviting submissions on perspectives from the peripheries of the Russian Empire/Soviet Union or the Nationalities Question, 1880-1932’ (especially but not exclusively, the Ukrainian dimensions). We also hope to invite two keynote speakers with specialisms in Ukrainian history in this period.

The conference languages are English and Russian.

All those interested in attending and/or presenting papers should contact the conference organiser Dr George Gilbert at g.gilbert@soton.ac.uk and Dr Lara Douds, Secretary of the SGRR at lara.douds@northumbria.ac.uk.

Paper proposals should consist of a short abstract of c. 300 words, as well as the contact details and institutional affiliation of the author(s).

The call for papers will close on 31 August 2021. Papers will need to be submitted in December to allow for pre-circulation amongst the group before the conference.

Postgraduates presenting papers at the Study Group may be eligible to apply for a subsidy of some of the conference costs if they are unable to obtain other funding.

War in Ukraine

Perspectives on the past, present and future

12 December 2022
Jeremy Morris (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Russian reactions to the war: defensive consolidation and resistance

8 February 2023
Bettina Renz (University of Nottingham)
Western estimates of Russian military capabilities and the invasion of Ukraine

23 February 2023
Dan Healey (University of Oxford)
2023 Southampton Stonewall Lecture
LGBTQ in a Time of War: The Queer History of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

8 March 2023
Zbigniew Wojnowski (University of Oxford) and Dana Mattingley (University of Cambridge)
Ukraine versus Russia: History, Myth, War

26 April
Natalia Levchuk (National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine)
Demographic trends in Ukraine: before and after the war

10 May 2023
Nicola Ramsden (BEARR Trust)
Supporting the humanitarian front in Ukraine, Poland and Moldova

7 June 2023
Svitlana Babenko (Malmö University) and Irina Kuznetsova (University of Birmingham)
Ukrainian refugees in the aftermath of the 2014 and 2022 invasions

21 June 2023
Conversations about research: conducting fieldwork in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus in the context of war