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Regular version of the site

Wolfgang Kissel's Report "From the October Revolution to Soviet Civilization: On the Emergence and Transformation of a Stalinist Discourse"

Event ended

Within the framework of the seminar "West and East: Universalism of Culture" Wolfgang Stefan Kissel will give a talk. Wolfgang Stefan Kissel is the director of the Institute of European Studies of the University of Bremen, leading research fellow of the International Laboratory for the Study of Russian and European Intellectual Dialogue (Higher School of Economics).

On September 21, 2018, at 6 pm, Wolfgang Kissel's report "From the October Revolution to Soviet Civilization, On the Emergence and Transformation of Stalinist Discourse" takes place.

Abstract:
When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian government in October 1917 and consolidated their power during the years of the Civil War 1918-1922, they wanted as much to construct a new order as to demolish the old one. To them, building up communism meant destroying not only autocratic Russia and its aristocracy, but also erasing bourgeois civilization from memory.
In the 1920s, most Soviet intellectuals thought that the concept of civilization was obsolete and belonged exclusively to the Western bourgeoisie. From their point of view, it was only logical and consistent to marginalize the use of the concept in communist ideology and in the official language of the 1920s and 1930s. Against the backdrop of a total breach with bourgeois civilization under Lenin, the renaissance of the term and Stalin’s personal interest in it after 1944 demands special study and elucidation.

The report will be in English.
Venue: Room 505, 21/4 Staraya Basmannaya Ulitsa, Moscow
For students and staff of the HSE, the entrance is free. To order a pass to the HSE, please write your full name to reid@hse.ru before 6pm on September 18, 2018.