International Scholarly Conference
SOVIET ENCOUNTERS WITH WEST AND EAST
27-28 November 2018, Moscow
National Research University
Higher School of Economics
Myasnitskaya 11, Moscow, Russia
Organizers
International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences
National Research University – Higher School of Economics (Moscow)
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation
With additional support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation
PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
TUESTDAY, November 27
9:30 AM – Registration (Foyer, 5th floor) / Coffee and snacks
10:00 AM – Welcome and opening remarks (Room 518)
10:30 AM – Parallel sessions
Panel 1-1: Sport in International Contacts of the Soviet Union (Room
518)
Moderator: Vera Dubina,
Project Coordinator in History and Civil Society, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Moscow
Steven Maddox,
Associate Professor of History, Canisius College, USA
Soviet Football Encounters with the West: The Basque National Team’s Tour of the
USSR, 1937
Sylvain Dufraisse,
Associate Professor of History, Université de Nantes, France
How to be Ready for Close Encounters: Soviet Sportsmen’s Ideological Training
Courses, 1945–1980
Timur Mukhamatulin,
PhD Student, Rutgers University, USA
“There is such a sport in Poland”: Bodybuilding as an Example of Soviet Importation
of Ideas from Socialist East Europe Countries
Panel 1-2: Contacts and exchanges in the 1920s and 1930s (Room 508)
Moderator: Sophie Coeuré,
Professor of Contemporary History, University Paris 7 Denis Diderot, France
Maria Teresa Giusti,
Professor of Contemporary and Social History, Gabriele d’Annuzio State University, Chieti-
Pescara, Italy
Political, Cultural, and Economic Relations between Italy and the Soviet Union, 1924-
1941
Lisa Kirschenbaum,
Professor of History, West Chester University, USA
Russian Americans and Soviet Visitors: Cultural Exchanges in the 1930s
Maria Blackwood,
Research Scholar, Kennan Institute, USA
Fighting Jim Crow in Central Asia: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in the Soviet Union
Through African American Eyes
12:00 NOON – Lunch (Dining hall)
1:00 PM – Parallel sessions
Panel 2-1: The Transfer of Technologies and Contact in Economics
(Room 518)
Moderator: Oleg Budnitskii,
Professor, School of History, Director, International Center for the History and Sociology of
World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Nikita Mel’nikov,
Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of History and Archeology, the Ural Branch of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, Ekaterinburg
The Cost of Import Substitution: The Development of Soviet Tank Production against
the Background of Growth and Then Decreasing Dependence on Imports, 1929-1945
Kirill Boldovskii,
Research Fellow at St Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
“Criminal waste…” Why Were Borrowed Technologies and Instruments So
Ineffectively Used?
Elena Kochetkova,
Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History, NRU HSE,
St Petersburg
Displaying the Cold War: Finnish Trade and Industrial Fairs in the USSR, 1945-1964
Sophie Lambroschini,
Associate Researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch, Germany
“We Drink Vodka in Moscow and Whisky in London”: How Soviet Bankers Brought
Financial Capitalism to Moscow during the Cold War
Panel 2-2: Emotional encounters and perceptions (Room 508)
Moderator: Liudmila Novikova,
Deputy Director of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II
and Its Consequences, Associate Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Rósa Magnúsdóttir,
Associate Professor of History, Aarhus University, Denmark
Love across the Iron Curtain: Soviet‐American Intermarriage during the Cold War
Rachel Rubin,
Professor of American Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
Misreading “Friendship” in the Cold War: Lumumba University and the West
Dimitri Filimonov,
PhD Student, University Paris-VIII Vincennes Saint-Denis, France
Imagining France in the USSR in the 1940-50s : A Study of Perception Based on
People’s Letters
Marina Yusupova,
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle
University, United Kingdom
Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia in the Global Formations of Race
3:00 PM – Coffee Break (Foyer, 5th floor)
3:30 PM – Parallel sessions
Panel 3-1: Soviet Union and the East (Room 518)
Moderator: Seth Bernstein,
Assistant Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Samuel Hirst,
Assistant Professor of International Relations, Bilkent University, Turkey
The Soviet Union and Ethnic Politics in Turkey in the 1920s
Rinna Kullaa,
Visiting Professor, Institute of East European Studies, University of Vienna
Building Connections with the Developing World across the Mediterranean: The
Soviet Union in Cold War Algeria and Syria
Riccardo Mario Cucciolla,
Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its
Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Uzbekistan: the Soviet Gate to the Third World
Jan Behrends,
Researcher at Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF), Germany
Mountains, Muslims, War: Soviet Perceptions of Afghanistan, 1980-1989
Panel 3-2: American Leftist Intellectuals in the USSR in the 1930s (Room
508)
Moderator: Ilia Kukulin,
Associate Professor, School of Cultural Studies, Senior Research Fellow, International
Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE,
Moscow
Elena Ostrovskaia,
Associate Professor, School of Philology, NRU HSE, Moscow
Assistant Editor: Walt Carmon and the Magazine “International Literature”
Olga Panova,
Professor of the History of Foreign Literature, Faculty of Philology, Lomonosov Moscow
State University, Senior Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, Russian
Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Walt Carmon: A Soviet Emissary in the United States
Elena Zemskova,
Associate Professor, School of Philology, NRU HSE, Moscow
Edward Falkowski: An American Journalist in the Moscow Cultural Life of the Mid-
1930s
Victoria Popova,
Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Moscow
Waldo Frank and the USSR: The Search for a New World and Lost Illusions
5:30 PM – Reception (Dining hall)
WEDNESDAY, November 28
9:30 AM – Parallel sessions
Panel 4-1: The USSR and Its International Environment in the 1920s and
1930s (Room 518)
Moderator: Oleg Khlevniuk,
Leading research fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II
and Its Consequences, Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Aleksandr Vatlin,
Professor at the Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University
The Presentation of Soviet Russia to Foreign Communists, 1919-1921: the Example
of Comintern’s First Congresses
Aleksei Tepliakov,
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, Novosibirsk
The Cominterm, TASS, and Radio in the International Propaganda of the “Industrial
Party” Trial, 1930-1931
Andrei Savin,
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, Novosibirsk
“Contactees”: Soviet Citizens as Visitors to Foreign Embassies and Consulates in the
1930s
Panel 4-2: The Thaw and Contacts in the Realms of Literature and
Culture (Room 430)
Moderator: Anna Whittington,
Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its
Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Maria Maiofis,
Associate Professor, School of Cultural Studies, NRU HSE, Moscow
East European Pedagogy in Soviet Scholarship and Fiction in the Second Half of the
1950s
Ilia Kukulin,
Associate Professor, School of Cultural Studies, Senior Research Fellow, International
Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE,
Moscow
Nâzım Hikmet: The Collison of the Leftist Intellectual with “Real Socialism”
Philip Gleissner,
Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Ohio
State University
Transnational Circulations: International Literature between Moscow, Prague, and
Berlin
11.00 AM – Coffee break (Foyer, 5th floor)
11.30 AM – Parallel sessions
Panel 5-1: Contacts and Encounters during World War II (Room 518)
Moderator: Jürgen Feldhoff,
Professor at the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Germany
Vladimir Nevezhin,
Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Moscow
At the Table with Stalin: The Communication of Allies at Banquets in the Kremlin,
1941-1945
Iskander Magadeev,
Associate Professor, School of International Relations, Moscow State Institute of
International Relations
Soviet Society and Authority in the Mirror of British Diplomatic and Intelligence
Assessments, 1941-1945
Vasilii Tokarev,
Lecturer, Magnitogorsk Polytechnic College
The Photo Retouching of Re-Annexation: “Former Poland” in the Shadow of the
Soviet Union in 1939
Oksana Kornilova,
Research Fellow, Smolensk State University
From a “New Order” to a “New Europe”: The Everyday Realities and Propaganda in
Occupied Smolensk, 1941-1943
Panel 5-2: Religion and international contacts (Room 430)
Moderator: Martin Beisswenger,
Assistant Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Victor Dönninghaus,
Deputy Director, Nordost-Institute, University of Hamburg, Germany
Holes in the “Iron Curtain”: The West and Religious Politics in the USSR in the Period
of “Developed Socialism”
Zilia Habibullina,
Research Fellow, Institute of Ethnological Studies of R.G. Kuzeev, Ufa
The Spiritual Administration of Muslims in the European Part of the USSR and
Siberia and the Implementation of Foreign Contacts of Soviet Muslims
Nadezhda Beliakova,
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Church Diplomacy in the Conditions of the Cold War: The International Activism of
Soviet Religious Figures between East and West in the 1960s and 1970s
Johannes Dyck,
Research Fellow, Bible Seminary Bonn, Germany
The Mennonite Émigré Community of North America and Religious Politics of the
Soviet Union
1:30 PM – Lunch (Dining hall)
2:30 PM – Parallel sessions
Panel 6-1: The Spaces of Inter-Cultural Communication during the Cold
War: The USSR, the “Socialist Camp”, and the Third World (Room 518)
Moderator: Juliane Fürst,
Head of the Department “Communism and Society,” Center for Contemporary History,
Potsdam, Germany
Jan-Hinnerk Antons,
Research Fellow, Department of Eastern European History, Helmut-Schmidt-University,
Hamburg, Germany
The Baltic Sea Week in the German Democratic Republic: Personal Encounters and
Public Diplomacy
Oksana Nagornaia,
Professor of History, Iaroslavl State Pedagogical University, Senior Research Fellow, South
Ural State University (NRU), Chelyabinsk
Soviet-Cuban Scholarly Collaboration: Spaces of Inter-Cultural Communication in the
Context of Global Post-Colonialism
Aleksei Popov,
Associate Professor, Department of Russian History, V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal
University, Simferopol, Research Fellow, South Ural State University (NRU), Chelyabinsk
A Youth “International”: “Sputnik” International Camps in the System of Soviet
Cultural Diplomacy
Panel 6-2: Culture in the Cold War (Room 430)
Moderator: Irina Builova,
Executive Director, Yegor Gaidar Foundation, Moscow
Raquel Tôrres,
PhD Student, University of São Paulo, Brazil
Transposing the Iron Curtain: Brazilians’ Travels to the Soviet Union in the Cold War,
1950-1963
Dina Fainberg,
Lecturer in Modern History, University of London, United Kingdom
Notes from the Rotten West: Soviet Foreign Correspondents in the USA, 1968-1985
Gennadii Kostyrchenko,
Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Moscow
The Shcharanskii Affair: The KGB in Pursuit of an American Trace
4:00 PM – Coffee break (Foyer, 5th floor)
4.30 PM – Parallel sessions
Panel 7-1: Images of others (Room 518)
Moderator: Angelina Lucento,
Assistant Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Aleksandr Golubev,
Head of the Center for the Study of Russian Culture, Institute of Russian History, Russian
Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Visual Images of the World among the Soviet Society of the Interwar Period: The
Example of Political Caricature
Antonina Sharova,
Associate Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Aggressor, Victim, Ally: The Image of the Outside World in Soviet Textbooks of
Modern and Contemporary History, 1930-1960s
Cécile Pichon-Bonin,
Researcher, French National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris, France
From Children’s Drawings to Images for Children: The Role of Foreign Sources in
Discussions on Children’s Primitivism
Lidia Grishaeva,
Professor, Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Churchill in Russia: The Works and Image of Churchill in Propaganda and Popular
Perceptions
Panel 7-2: Postwar encounters and cultural production (Room 430)
Moderator: Alexandr Voronovici,
Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its
Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Marsha Siefert,
Associate Professor, Department of History, Central European University, Budapest,
Hungary
The Young Guard Abroad: Sergei A. Gerasimov as Socialist Intermediary in West and
East, 1949-1950
Alexander Golovlev,
Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its
Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Soviet Forays into the Land of Music: VOKS Delegation’s Visit to Austria in 1950 as an
Encounter with Western Music and Musicians
Nikita Tregubov,
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Political Science, South Ural State
University, Chelyabinsk
Contradictions of Soviet-American Cultural Exchanges during the Cold War
