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The Guardian reports the Russian Ambassador to London’s accusations that the British media are involved in an anti-Russian campaign.

This is not news.

I’d really like to put together a special subject that fits Soviet domestic politics under Stalin together with foreign policy.  As much as 50% of the module could deal with the foreign policy, and it would work well as a special subject, allowing students to engage with the historiography and with primary material relating to Stalin’s time in power.  It should also produce some interesting dissertations and recruit well.

Potential topics:

• Stalin’s rise to power
• The Great Break (1928 launch of FYP and collectivization)
• The Assassination of Kirov
• The Gulag
• Soviet culture and society under Stalin (several topics in this)
• Dissent
• The Great Retreat (Timasheff)
• The Third Period (Comintern 1928-1933)
• Collective Security 1933-1939
• The Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939
• The German Invasion, 22 June 1941
• The beginning of the Cold War 
• Identity
• Terror (including the Purges and the Gulag)
• Women
• ‘High Stalinism’

I’m putting on a new module at UWE next year.  I’ve taught a similar module at Leeds, but there are some structural differences between the two institutions that mean that some fairly sizeable changes need to be made to the seminars.  At Leeds the seminars all dealt with reasons for the Soviet collapse, and it would seem worth sticking to this format as it’s interesting and stops the module being a linear lecture/seminar course.  I need to think about what works in terms of the extra sessions needed.

Take a holiday, add warm weather, sprinkle with inebriated Russians dancing in the street.

As most people will know, Moscow’s Victory Day celebrations this year saw the return of tanks and missiles to the parade.  This is the first time this has happened in 20 years, and raises some issues.  The western media, yet again portraying Russia in a negative light and fanning the flames of a ‘new cold war’, have taken this as entirely negative and claimed that Russia is simply sabre rattling.  While there is a degree of sabre rattling going on, there is more to it than this - there is a large amount of making sure that the past isn’t forgotten.

This is further shown in a fantastic array of informational posters about the Great Patriotic War, ranging from recognising those who developed the technology to explaining what the medals mean (the only one i photographed is below, explaining the major medals).  This all indicates a generational shift - no longer is there a generation that implicity understands what Victory Day is about for Russia and its inhabitants.  It is about remembering the huge sacrifice that was made to fight for survival against the Nazi invasion.

Russia Today’s coverage of the parade:

I’m about to go to Joensuu in Karelia (Finland) on an Erasmus Teaching Mobility trip.  It seems that it’s going to be a good experience, and should be lots of fun.  I’m actually teaching an 8-hour lecture course (worth 2 ECTS credits) on Soviet Foreign Policy and the Comintern in the 1920s and 1930s.  The course will cover:

1. The Soviet takeover of diplomacy and the establishment of the Comintern
2. Soviet foreign policy in the 1920s: revolution or normalization
3. The Soviet stand against fascism: collective security, the popular front and the Spanish Civil War
4. The Soviet Union and its challengers: relations with Nazi Germany and Japan

I’d like to propose a special subject on Stalin and Stalinism to start in 2009.  I’ve taught one in the past at the University of Leeds, so have some ideas on what I might cover, but feel that I could usefully produce a module that dealt with the Stalinist state in both a domestic and international context.  Students would not be expected to have a command of Russian, and would be directed to the wide range of primary material available in English.Topics that might be included: 

• The Comintern 
• The 1927 war scare
• Foreign policy in the 1930s
• The Nazi Invasion, 1941
• The beginning of the Cold War 
• Stalin’s rise to power
• Industry 
• Agriculture and Collectivization
• Culture: the Arts; everyday life
• Identity
• Terror (including the Purges and the Gulag)
• Women
• ‘High Stalinism’

Engaging the World: Soviet Diplomacy and Foreign Propaganda in the 1920s

It’s been a great conference and an opportunity to encounter some of the better known US and international scholars in the field of Slavic Studies.My panel was good, along with Clayton Black, Olga Velikanova and Lars Lih, we dealt with the fantasies and realities of Soviet foreign affairs in the 1920s. Papers were followed by a lively discussion and I got some good feedback.  My paper will be published shortly.