In May 2017 the Centre for Russian Studies in Budapest is announcing its 11th biennale international academic conference. The aim of the conference is to provide an opportunity for a dialogue between senior and young researchers from different countries and cultures to discuss newly emerging academic questions of and approaches to the 1917 Russian Revolution(s).
The history of the Russian Revolution(s) has become a topic of memory politics in postsocialist Eastern Europe. Its rejection, the falsification of its history has become integrated in the legitimating ideologies, mainstream political discourse of the emergent new regimes. In this discourse the former “great October Revolution” appears as a “small October coup d’etat” and the red terror has become mainstreamed in the new history writing and teaching. Has the Russian Revolution indeed failed? If yes, then in what sense? The Revolution(s) as a historical process, as a whole has been marginalized and de-constructed, the partial takes precedence over the whole.
Revolutionary violence and terror is detached from the original historical context and it is used to demonize the Revolution, Bolshevism and the Soviet power. Totalitarianism as a method and interpretation is celebrating a new Renaissance after it has been effectively de-constructed by the revisionist school in the 1980s. What can critical thinkers do to re-conquer the history and memory of the Revolution?
The Centre for Russian Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, seeks proposals from academic fellows, postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates.
Some suggested topics are the following:
1. Historians of the 1917 Russian Revolution(s): Different Interpretations in Historiography
2. Historical Reasons and Aims: the Consequences of the Russian Revolution(s). Continuity and Discontinuity in the Historical Process
3. Historical Memory of the 1917 Russian Revolution(s): Today and Yesterday
4. The National Question: Local and Global Connecting in the Revolutionary Process
5. Culture and Revolution(s) in Russia
6. The Great Figures of the Revolution(s) and Their Heritage
7. Bolshevism: Ideology and the Historical Limits of the Revolution
8. Has the Russian Revolution Failed?
Selected papers are intended to be published in a conference volume by the middle of 2018.
Working languages are Russian and English.
Location: Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Humanities. 1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt. 4. and 6-8.
Participation fee: 30 Euros
It covers the registration fee, lunch on May 15-16, and partly the costs of publishing a conference volume. (More information follows together with the confirmation of your participation.)
Deadlines:
- June 30, 2016. submission of the application form.
- November 5, 2016 submission of the abstracts (Lenght: 2000 characters, including spaces).
- January 9, 2017 notification about the acceptance of the paper proposal.
- February 6, 2017 deadline for paying the participation fee.
- May 15-16, 2017 Conference. Presentations will be limited to 20-25 minutes.
- September 5, 2017 deadline for the completed essays in English or Russian to be published (length: 15.000-20.000 characters, including spaces). Formal requirements will follow.