News & Events
The Latest …
CEREES Publication —
Natalya Chernyshova, “Rethinking the role of Belarus in the UK’s policy on the war in Ukraine,” H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum, June 2024
“Although the political crisis in Belarus dominated global media headlines for much of 2020 … Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has pushed Belarus further down the priority list of Western policymakers, including those in the United Kingdom. This is a mistake, and UK policymakers need to think differently, and more proactively, about Belarus as a critical factor in Russia’s war on Ukraine.”
CEREES Publication —
Robert Chandler, “People Person: the greatness of Andrey Platonov,” Prospect Magazine
May 2024
“Platonov is one of the greatest of Russian writers—not least for the characters he brought into the world. He deserves to be more widely read.”
CEREES Mini-Series: “Contemporary Debates in Post-Socialist Theory and Practice”
CEREES will be co-hosting and supporting this three-part lecture series on postsocialist theory and praxis organized by Maria Chehonadskih (QMUL) and Neda Genova (Warwick), and featuring Zhivka Barbarianna, Raia Apostolova, and Piro Rexhepi.
Book here: Event 1 / Event 2 / Event 3
CEREES Lecture & Archive Talk —
Igor Cașu (National Agency of Archives, State University of Moldova),
‘Soviet Famine in Moldova:
Why was the Soviet famine of 1946-7 the most severe in the Moldavian SSR? Preliminary conclusions based on Chișinău, Kyiv, and Moscow archives’
Wednesday 8 May, 2024
Book here: Eventbrite
CEREES co-sponsored reception at the 2024 Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES)
CEREES will be co-sponsoring a PGR reception at the Annual BASEES Conference, 2024, Robinson College, Cambridge.6:15pm – 7:15pm.
All PGRs welcome!
Roundtable — Towards Reshaping East-Central Europe and Eurasia
Linnet Room, Robinson College, University of Cambridge
2024 Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES)
Chair: Elena Palko (University of Basel / CEREES Affiliate)
Roundtable: Andy Willimott (CEREES, QMUL); George Gilbert (University of Southhampton); Francis King (UEA)
Friday 5 April, 16:45-18:15
CEREES Lecture —
Neringa Klumbytė (Miami University)
‘Authoritarian Laughter: Political Humor and Soviet Dystopia in Lithuania’
Monday 8 April, 2024
Book here: Eventbrite
CEREES Book Discussion —
Tamara Popic’s Health Reforms in Post-Communist Eastern Europe.
Discussants:
Dr Eleanor Brooks (School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh)
Dr Allan Sikk (School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London)
Wednesday 20 March, 2024
CEREES Book Launch —
Robert Chandler on Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur
Monday 18 March, 2024
Book here: Eventbrite
CEREES Lecture —
Natalya Chernyshova ‘Out of the marshes and into the nuclear age:
the politics of modernisation in late Soviet Belarus, 1965-1980′
Monday 26 February, 2024
Book here: Eventbrite
CEREES Publication —
Health Reforms in Post-Communist Eastern Europe: The Politics of Policy Learning (Palgrave Macmillan)
Tamara Popic
This innovative new study analyses healthcare reforms pathways in the post-communist Europe. Combining insights from comparative politics and social policy analysis, it examines the politics of health reforms in Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Poland over the three transitional decades, from 1989 to 2019.
The book argues that the post-communist transformation of healthcare policy entailed policy learning, an endogenous process of policy change. This process was driven by ideas rooted in the belief that market mechanisms such as competition and privatisation would solve the problems of the healthcare system, yielding higher efficiency and better allocation of resources. The market ideas emerged already under communism and pathways taken by different countries away from communist-era healthcare system have been shaped by a series of reform initiatives aimed at adapting these ideas in healthcare provision. The success of these initiatives has been influenced by three factors: policy legacies, political competition, and institutional configurations. By challenging dominant views of the post-communist welfare transition, the book offers a novel approach to comparative analysis of health reforms in the region, as well as policy changes more generally.
CEREES Screening —
Katia Izmailova (Valerii Todorovskii 1994)
(with the accompanying launch of: A History of Russian Literature on Film by David Gillespie and Marina Korneeva)
Monday 29 January, 2024
CEREES Publication —
World Literature in the Soviet Union
eds. Galin Tihanov, Anna Lounsbery, and Rossen Djagalov
CEREES News —
New Study Group:
Soviet Temporalities Study Group
The organisers of the ‘Late Soviet Temporalities Reading Group’ have successfully applied for BASEES Study Group status. The reading group will continue as a core activity of this thriving collaboration.
BASEES announcement: here
Mikhail Osorgin’s ‘The Riven Heart of Moscow‘
Svetlana Payne
Wednesday 24 January, 19:00-20:30,
ArtsOne 1.28, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road London E1 4NS
Please register your attendance: Eventbrite
CEREES Call for Papers —
Call for Papers: Images of the Ideal. Evald Ilyenkov at 100
International conference, May 16–17, 2024, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung
Organisation: Z. Andronikashvil (ZfL), I. Jacobs (CEREES, QMUL), M. Küpper (Kiel), and M. Schwartz (ZfL)
Enquiries: Isabel Jacobs i.jacobs@qmul.ac.uk; Martin Küpper makuepper@icloud.com
CEREES Lecture —
‘The Online Ukraine War: Russo-Ukrainian Social Media Debates on Politics and Culture’
Sergey Zherebkin
Monday 11 December 2023, 18:00-20:00, Queen Mary University of London, Graduate Centre, GC601
Please register your attendance: Eventbrite
CEREES Publication —
‘”A Past Charged with the Time of the Now”: How Do Radical Movements Sustain a Sense of Past?’
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History (Fall 2023): 901-920
Dr Andy Willimott
CEREES Presents —
‘Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955-1968’ (Book Talk)
Alessandro Iandolo
20 November, 2023, 6-8pm
Queen Mary University of London, Graduate Centre, GC601
You are warmly invited to this Book Talk on Soviet-West African connections. Please register your attendance via Ticket-Tailor.
CEREES Inaugural Lecture —
The Many Voices of Ukraine: A Multicultural Literary Space in the Context of Empire and War
William Blacker
30 October, 2023, 6-8pm
Queen Mary University of London, Graduate Centre, GC601
You are warmly invited to the newly established Centre for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies’ Inaugural Lecture. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite.
CEREES Publication —
‘Time at Home: The October Revolution and Soviet Temporalities‘
History: Journal of the Historical Association
Dr Andy Willimott
CEREES Publication —
‘Between Soviet and Ethnic: Cultural Policies and National Identity-Building in Soviet Belarus under Petr Masherau, 1965-1980‘
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History
Dr Natalya Chernyshova
CEREES Conference —
Ex Oriente Lux: Emigré Culture in Interwar France
1-2 September 2023
Queen Mary University of London
A two-day conference on East European intellectuals in French exile during the wars
Past activities …
CEREES Screenings —
Barbican Cinema, 10.07.23
Prof Jeremy Hicks in panel discussion at screening of Red Africa
Alexander Markov’s documentary on the history of the influence exerted by the USSR over across Africa between 1960 -1990, working from extraordinary archival footage filmed by Soviet operators.
CEREES Screenings —
Famine is a Russian film depicting the 1921-22 famine in Russia and Ukraine and international relief efforts. It has been banned in Russia.
CEREES Publications —
The Conversation, June 19, 2023
Prof Jeremy Hicks, “Famine: the award-winning documentary banned by Russia for its reminder of a cruel past,” The Conversation, June 19, 2023
In October last year, Russia banned a documentary depicting the famine that hit parts of the Soviet Union including Ukraine between 1921 and 1923 and revoked the film’s screening licence. Now the film is to have its UK premiere (with English subtitles) on June 22 in east London. Prof Jeremy Hicks discusses the significance and continuing relevance of famine in light of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
CEREES Collaboration —
SCRSS Lecture, 4 April 2023: The Wartime Evacuation of Soviet Cinema and the National Question
QMUL-based PhD student Assiya Issemberdiyeva takes a Central Asian perspective to re-evaluate the Second World War evacuation of the Soviet central film studios to Central Asia.
CEREES Publications —
Andy Willimott explores rich history of Soviet Glasnost-era posters, 01/2023
Openness and Idealism: Soviet Posters 1985-1991 looks back at the colourful and radical posters of Glasnost.
CEREES Screenings —
Barbican Cinema, 26 July 2022
Assault (15) + ScreenTalk with film critics Assiya Issemberdiyeva (QMUL) and Savina Petkova (KCL)
New East Cinema
Set in the outskirts of the fictional rural village in Kazakhstan, Assault is an absurdist, chilling look at the maddening hopelessness of living in a corrupted society.
When an anonymous group of masked gunmen storms a rural school and local authorities prove useless, an unlikely rescue squad takes matters into their own hands.
World-weary maths teacher Tazshy, skilfully embodied by Azamat Nigmanov, and his determined ex-wife Lena (Aleksandra Ravenko) lead the self-organised rescue team. They give themselves 36 hours to prepare an attack but, as is often in Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s films their inadequacy and self-obsession prove to be the real obstacle.
This screening is followed by a ScreenTalk with film critic and journalist Assiya Issemberdiyeva and film critic Savina Petkova.
CEREES Book launch —
London Through Russian Eyes 1896-1914: Book Launch, Discussion, Celebration
Edited by Anna Vaninskaya; Translated by Anna Vaninskaya and Maria Artamonova, (Boydell and Brewer, 2022).
When: Monday, November 28, 2022, 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Where: David Sizer Lecture Theatre, Bancroft Building, Queen Mary University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS
Shape the Conversation
To join our mailing list, participate in our programme of events, or find out how we can support your research, please contact hss-cerees@qmul.ac.uk