"Culture of nonconformity in Europe and the USSR in the second half of the twentieth century. Online project for training and scientific research" Report by Claudia Peralli

Abstract:

The Research Project entitled “On both sides of the Iron Curtain: the cultures of dissent and the definition of European identity in the second half of the twentieth century between Italy, France and the USSR (1956-1991)” was financed by the University of Florence in 2017 and is directed by prof. Teresa Spignoli (Italian Contemporary Literature) and Claudia Pieralli (Slavic Studies/Russian Literature).

The research area includes the various forms of dissent culture that from the Fifties onwards have concerned the European context, with particular regard to the comparison between Western and Eastern Europe, notably the Franco-Italian area and the Slavic one, (Soviet Russia, Belarus and Ukraine). These areas are characterized by the emergence of similar forms of protest against the cultural and political establishment, which express themselves in an antithetical but specular manner, in relation to the axis that separates the eastern bloc from the western one. The project aims to problematize the geocultural concept of Europe starting from its internal historical, social, and ethnocultural diversities, especially interested, with the end of the Second World War, in the West/East dividing axis, more than in the South/North axis, or the axis that divides Western Europe from Eastern Europe, included in the sphere of influence of the Soviet bloc.

For this reason, the strongly symbolic and relevant dates considered are 1956 (the beginning of de-Stalinization and a reflection within the West on the critical issues of communism) and 1991 (the year of collapse of the USSR and therefore of abolition of the Iron Curtain).

The lecture will try to guide the Audience in the several sections and sub-sections of the On-line Project, showing the contents especially of the Slavic/Russian area, the methodological choices and the ways for a functional use of such a Web resource for academic purposes and not only.

www.culturedeldissenso.com, www.culturedeldissenso.com/en.

The event leading is Olga Zhukova, professor at the HSE.

Venue: HSE building at 21/4 Staraya Basmannaya Street, building 1.
The working language is Russian. Everyone is welcome.
If you need a pass to the Higher School of Economics, please send a request with your full name to Anna Doronina (email: adoronina@hse.ru) until 6 pm on Wednesday, November 27, 2019.