Russian Space mini-seminar: Andrii Portnov, Bjarge Schwenke Fors, Julie Wilhelmsen

Russian Space RSCPR presents: A mini-seminar with Andrii Portnov (Berlin/Dnipro), Bjarge Schwenke Fors (Barentsintituttet), and Julie Wilhelmsen (NUPI)

Andrii Portnov (Professor, Berlin/Dnipro)

Soviet Ukrainian Patriotism Reconsidered

How did Soviet semi-federative (republican) structure and the heritage of the 'indigenisation' politics of the 1920s influence cultural processes in post-war Soviet Ukraine? What was 'Soviet Ukrainian Patriotism' like, where were the boundaries of 'allowed' and 'prohibited' in the Ukrainian cultural canon? How did two basic texts of the late 1960s - early 1970s – "Our Soviet Ukraine" by Petro Shelest and "The Cathedral" by Oles` Honchar – promote Ukrainian Soviet patriotism, how were they perceived in Moscow, and what happened to the texts and their authors?

 

Bjarge Schwenke Fors (Head of The Barents Institute/UiT)

Tourists, spies, vodka and Soviet cinema: The story about the opening of Boris Gleb in 1965

In June 1965, the Soviet Union quite unexpectedly decided to open Boris Gleb, a small parcel of land abutting on the Norwegian border, for visa-free tourism. During three summer months, thousands of Norwegians crossed the border and got a glimpse of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. The tourists drank vodka, (perhaps?) served by KGB agents, and visited a local cinema that screened Soviet movies. In the early autumn, the border closed again. The short-lived visa-free zone is a largely forgotten but interesting part of Norwegian-Russian border history.

 

Julie Wilhelmsen (Senior researcher, NUPI)

Russia’s engagement in Syria and why Russia-West cooperation in the fight against terror failed.

Russian foreign policies are shaped in a two-level interactive social game. Russian foreign policies take their cue from ingrained identity positions articulated by the state leadership and negotiated in domestic debates, but they are also informed by interaction with other states. Julie Wilhelmsen explains the shift in Russian policies away from pragmatic cooperation with the West in Syria from autumn 2015 onwards. While the Russian leadership initially sought such cooperation, the prominence of anti-Western discourse in Russia following the crisis in Ukraine as well as the West's rejection of Russia in this period spurred Russia to act independently in Syria.

 

When: 16.03.20 at 14.15–16.00
Where: SV-HUM C-1007
Location / Campus: Tromsø
Target group: Employees, Students, Guests, Invited
Contact: Yngvar B. Steinholt
E-mail: yngvar.steinholt@uit.no
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