De-Stalinisation in the Soviet Union

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Gießener Zentrum östliches Europa, Gerda Henkel Stiftung

Conference program

Thursday, 9^th

Arrival

20.00   Opening lecture (impulse)

Chair: Thomas Bohn (Gießen)

Stefan Plaggenborg (Bochum):   Post-Stalinism – An Epoch?

Friday, 10^th

9.00-12.30      Panel 1: Society

Chair: Steven Bittner (Sonoma)

Thomas Bohn (Gießen):  Closed Cities” versus “Open Society”. De-Stalinisation and Urbanisation

Galina Ivanova (Moscow): Десталинизация и социальная программа Хрущева

Melanie Ilic (Birmingham): Khrushchev and the Revival of the Woman Question

Juliane Fürst (Bristol): Destalinised Youth? Changes and Continuities of Policy, Concept and Experience

Commentary: Dietmar Neutatz (Freiburg)

14.00-17.30    Panel 2: Communication

Chair: Melanie Ilic (Birmingham)

Stephan Merl (Bielefeld): How did basic principles of political communication change after Stalin’s death?

Jurij Aksyutin (Moscow): Эволюция общественных настроений в СССР в 50-е – 70-е годы по материалам массовых опросов очевидцев и свидетелей событий тех лет

Simon Huxtable (London): Rethinking ‘The Regime’: Komsomol’skaia pravda and Political Power, 1956-68

Commentary: Sergei Zhuravlev (Moscow)

Saturday, 11th

9.00-12.30      Panel 3: Culture and memory

Chair: Stephan Merl (Bielefeld)

Polly Jones (London): Coming to terms with the past, or mastering the past? De-Stalinisation in comparative perspective

Maria Zezina (Moscow): Soviet writers and De-Stalinization in the period of  “thaw” and after

Alexandra Oberländer (Bremen): A cultural history of work

Michel Abesser (Freiburg): A cultural playground for the Soviet Middle Class? – Soviet Jazz in the 1950s and 60s

Commentary: Beate Fieseler (Düsseldorf)

14.00-17.30    Panel 4: Space

Chair: Jurij Aksyutin (Moscow)

Karsten Brüggemann (Tallinn): National in form, socialist in content? Song Festivals in the Estonian Soviet Republic

Rayk Einax (Gießen): Much ado about De-stalinisation. The view from the Belarussian periphery

Natalija Kibita (Glasgow): De-Stalinising economic administration: Ukrainian ideas on an alternative vision of centre-republic economic relations (1953-1965)

Commentary: Julia Obertreis (Freiburg)

19.00   Final session & discussion

Chair: Michel Abesser (Freiburg)/Rayk Einax (Gießen)

Steven Bittner (Sonoma): Was it really the Beginning of the End? De-Stalinisation and the Shadow of the Soviet Collapse

Sunday, 12^th

Departure