Description

This is an in-person event at the Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Seminar room 108, North House, Toronto, Ontario.

Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 created many crises, such as massive internal displacement, destroyed critical infrastructure, military occupation, to name only few. Ukrainian society proved surprising resilience in the asymmetric war and the local authorities are contributing to this resilience significantly. In this seminar, I’ll present the research findings, conducted with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, and the Association of Ukrainian Cities, with focus on two questions: First, how local public authorities (LPA) contribute to the resilience in Ukraine under conditions of the war. We define resilience as the capacity of local authorities to adjust and provide public services during the war despite external shocks and threats. The underlying assumption is that anticipatory governance is a useful approach to reinforce and sustain resilience capacity of the local authorities in Ukraine. Thus, the second question is, what is the capacity of public authorities in Ukraine for anticipatory governance and what are opportunities and challenges to it. The analysis is based on three pillars of anticipatory governance – foresight, networks, and feedback loops, as well as considers the role digital technologies.  The study is based on the survey of communities in Ukraine in September 2022. The questionnaire has been informed by the previous interviews and a focus group with the representatives of local authorities (community and regional level) and representatives on the central level. The survey dataset consisted of 241 responses – it is 16% of all communities in Ukraine. Where possible, we compare the results with the findings of the 2021 baseline survey on open government.  The assessment of LPAs resilience in this survey confirms the widespread assumption that local self-government authorities in Ukraine are the backbone of the national resilience in crises arising from the war. The ongoing work of LPAs under high security threats ensured adequacy of public services to the current needs of citizens, as well as provided legitimate centers to manage crises and coordinate resources, in line with the local context. The findings indicate that networks – both with citizens, businesses, as well as with other communities in Ukraine and abroad, were crucial to withstand seven months of the war. In the same time, the survey indicated some weak spots in anticipatory governance practices that should be strengthened, especially with regards to vertical intragovernmental collaboration and feedback loops to increase flexibility of governance.  

Dr Oksana Huss is a researcher in the BIT-ACT research project at the University of Bologna, Italy and lecturer at the Anti-Corruption Research and Education Centre, Ukraine. Her areas of expertise cover (anti-)corruption and social movements, as well as open government and digital technologies. Oksana obtained her doctoral degree at the Institute for Development and Peace, Germany and held several research fellowships in Canada, France, Netherlands, and Sweden. She consulted international organizations, such as Council of Europe, EU, UNESCO and UNODC. Oksana is a co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network and author of the book How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes: Strategies of Political Domination under Ukraine’s Presidents in 1994-2014.

Description

This is an-person event in Seminar Room 108N, North House, Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario.

Digital transformation increasingly drives economic growth in the rich capitalist democracies, but orienting production around digital technologies is associated with rising inequality and spreading precarity. In Recoding Power, Rothstein outlines three tactics that workers can use to build power in the current episode of economic transition, where they otherwise lack access to traditional power resources like unions and institutions for social protection. Drawing on four in-depth case studies of workers responding to mass layoffs at tech firms in the United States and Germany, Rothstein shows how workers can develop creative tactics to “recode” management’s discursive techniques for control, transforming them from obstacles into resources for collective action. By centering workers’ lived experiences in the workplace, Recoding Power develops an account of actually existing digital transformation, illustrating how the path of capitalist development is shaped not by economic necessity, but by political creativity.  

Sidney Rothstein is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Williams College. His research focuses on the political economy of wealthy democracies in comparative perspective, especially in Europe and the United States. In particular, Rothstein examines the politics of digital transformation, seeking to explain how the transition to the knowledge economy reshapes relationships of power and patterns of inequality in different countries. He holds a BA from Reed College, a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and has held appointments at Haverford College, the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

This event is funded by the DAAD with funds from the German Federal Foreign Office (AA).

Description

This is an-in person event at the Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Seminar Room 208, North House, Toronto, Ontario.

Ukraine’s heroic defence has provoked various discussions about brave and strong resistance, much evidence of which have been demonstrated since late February 2022. Ukraine’s experience has proven that enduring resilience forms a solid basis for resistance, whereas successful resistance enables transformative effects of resilience. Both systems and functions are critical for a nation’s survival, development and recovery which anticipates and observes the post-victory progress in reconstruction, recuperation, and rehabilitation of the nation.  

The development cooperation programme “Resilient Ukraine” has been implemented by the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) since 2016 with the support of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Currently, the ICDS team studies several resilience-related attitudes and perceptions of the war and recovery among vulnerable groups in Ukraine (i.e. refugees, IDPs, veterans, youth, traumatised families, people from de-occupied territories etc.). The analytical data will be used for promoting best practises in and civic engagement for crisis preparedness, civil protection and public safety on local and regional levels in Ukraine. Moreover, a more profound understanding of societal resilience will contribute to strengthening active citizenship and social cohesion and preventing polarization, radicalization and youth disillusionment through intergenerational and interregional dialogue.  

Dmitri Teperik will present the latest results of ICDS field research with the major findings and policy recommendations on Ukraine’s development needs in operational continuity, civil security, law enforcement, crisis preparedness and strategic communications. As the role of institutional resilience — especially that of state agencies and local municipalities — increases considerably during the crisis and also recovery phase, Ukraine’s international partners and donors should, therefore, support the wide spectrum of resilience stakeholders on all levels.  

Speaker bios:

Dmitri Teperik has been the Chief Executive of the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) since 2016. From 2007 to 2015, he worked at the Estonian Ministry of Defence, overseeing research and development (R&D), as well as the defence industry. In 2016, he co-founded the “Resilience League”, an international training and co-operation platform, to provide young professionals and experts with practical skills and tools necessary to develop cognitive resilience against hostile disinformation and societal polarisation. Since 2016, he has been leading “Resilient Ukraine”, a development and cooperation program that focuses on measuring and strengthening national resilience in vulnerable communities in Ukraine. Among his main academic interests are factors contributing to national resilience, situational awareness in the information environment and social media, as well as interdependencies between communication and behaviour. He holds an MSc degree from the University of Tartu (Estonia) and has completed various internships abroad, including at Vilnius University and NATO HQ. He has participated in various professional training courses on security in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, as well as NATO and the EU.

Description

This is an-person event in Seminar Room 108N, North House, Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario.

The main focus of the talk is on internal regime dynamics in Russia ("regime personalization") before and during the war.  Fabian Burkhardt is a comparative political scientist. His research interests are political institutions, such as executives and constitutions, in authoritarian regimes, with a regional focus on post-Soviet countries, in particular Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. At IOS in Regensburg, he conducts research on how digital transformation shapes post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. Since July 2020, he has been the co-editor of Russland- and Ukraine-Analysen, and of the Russian Analytical Digest since 2022. Burkhardt received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Bremen for the thesis “Presidential power and institutional change: A study on the presidency of the Russian Federation.” Before joining the IOS, he worked at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich), the Higher School of Economics (HSE Moscow), and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP Berlin). His research has been published in journals such as Post-Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia Studies, and Russian Politics.

Description

Speaker Bios:
Ron Levi is Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the Department of Sociology, and is Distinguished Professor of Global Justice. He holds a courtesy cross-appointment to the Faculty of Law, and is a Permanent Visiting Professor at the University of Copenhagen.Ron has served as Secretary of the Law and Society Association, and as an elected Council Member for the Sociology of Law section of the American Sociological Association. He was made Chevalier in l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Government, is a recipient of the Ludwik and Estelle Jus Memorial Human Rights Prize, and has served as Scholar-in-Residence for Holocaust Education Week. In 2022, he received the Global Educator Award from the University of Toronto.  

Gabriele Chlevickaite is an Assistant Professor in Empirical and Normative Studies at the VU Amsterdam (Faculty of Law, Criminology and Criminal Law Department), where she conducts research into fact-finding in international criminal investigations. She is a board member of the Center for International Criminal Justice (www.cicj.org), an interdisciplinary research centre at the VU Amsterdam and a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR) in Amsterdam, where she conducted my NWO Research Talent-funded PhD research in 2017-2021. In 2013-2017, she was an analysis assistant at the International Criminal Court, and in 2020-2021 she was a research assistant with the Independent Expert Review of the International Criminal Court.  

Monica Eppinger, Associate Professor; Co-Director, Center for International and Comparative Law, Center for International and Comparative Law. Eppinger has published ten articles or peer-reviewed essays in journals including the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, the George Washington International Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. She has been a featured expert on the law of war, Russia, and Ukraine on CNN, public radio, and in local print and broadcast news media.In 2011, the American Society of Comparative Law selected the working draft of her article on the institution of private property in Ukraine, "Unraveling the Illiberal Commons," as one of six papers discussed at its annual works-in-progress workshop held at Yale Law School. Her work on property was also selected for the 2011 Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Her work in international law, on the law of war, was selected for the 2011 Childress Symposium, the 2013 Ewha Comfort Women Conference (Seoul, Korea), and the 2014 Cornell Law School Comfort Women Conference.Before entering academia, Eppinger served in the United States diplomatic corps as a tenured Foreign Service Officer for nine years, with tours of duty or policy-making experience in Nigeria, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Caspian energy, and West African security. She was awarded an individual Superior Honor Award, the State Department’s highest civilian honor, in 1999.  

Ilona Khmeleva holds a PhD in Law specializing in International Law (Institute of International Relations, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv). Since 2021 she coordinates the project "Ukraine in Europe: Parliamentary Dimension" (implemented by LibMod in partnership with the East Europe Foundation) and is an expert in the field of international law and international relations. Ilona Khmeleva is a member of the Ukrainian Association of International Law, author of numerous scientific publications.  

Oleksandr Merezhko, Professor and Doctor of Law in International Law, namely in such areas as international public law, international diplomatic law, international treaties law, EU law, international environmental law, law of international organizations, etc. He is a specialist in international treaties and international economic law. Doctor of Legal Sciences, thesis: “Theory and Principles of Transnational Trade Law (Lex Mercatoria)” (Ukraine, 2002). Candidate of Legal Sciences (PhD), thesis: “Humanitarian Intervention and International Law” (Ukraine, 1996). People`s Deputy, Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and Interparliamentary Ties of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Vice-President of Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe.  

Afonso Seixas-Nunes obtained a PhD from the University of Essex in 2019, with a thesis entitled ‘The legitimacy and accountability for the development of autonomous weapon systems under international humanitarian law’. Between 2018-2020, Afonso worked as a visiting scholar at the Blavatnik School of Government under the supervision of Professor Dapo Akande.He taught various legal subjects at the Porto Law School and at Essex Law School and currently also lectures at the Universidad de Deusto in Spain. His areas of interests are international law and the use of force; international humanitarian law and the challenges of new technologies of warfare for international law; and state responsibility for violations of international humanitarian law caused by artificial devices.Afonso Seixas-Nunes is a Jesuit Priest, having been ordained in 2010. He is currently a Junior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, Oxford University.

Description

This event is taking place at the Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Seminar room 108, North House, Toronto, Ontario.

Speaker Bios:

Ulf Brunnbauer is a social historian of Southeastern Europe. He serves as Director of the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg (Germany) and holds the Chair of Southeast and East European History at the University of Regensburg. In his research, he deals mainly with the social history of the Balkans since the 19th century and with questions of nationalism and state-building. His most recent book, co-authored with Philipp Ther et al., is a history of transformation on the example of two shipyards since the 1970s (In den Stürmen der Transformation, Suhrkamp, 2022). He is also author of Globalizing Southeastern Europe. Emigrants, America, and the State since the 19th Century (Lexington, 2016).  

Katrin Boeckh is Research Associate at the Leibniz-Institute for Southeast and East European Studies (IOS) in Regensburg. She studied History of Eastern and South Eastern Europe, Slavic languages and Languages of the Balkans at the universities of Regensburg and Munich and earned a degree as M.A. in 1991. In 1995, she graduated at the University of Munich with her Ph.D. in History of Eastern and South Eastern Europe (Dr. phil.). Habilitation followed in 2004. During her professional career at the Osteuropa-Institut (first in Munich, since 2007 in Regensburg), Katrin Boeckh was technical editor of the journal „Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas" until 2008, since then she is senior researcher in the Department of History. Her areas of research are ethno-national conflicts and their consequences, state and churches in socialist countries, institutions in late Stalinism and the discourse of values during transformation, with a regional focus on the Ukraine and the countries of Yugoslavia.

Heike Karge is Assistant Professor at the Chair for the History of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, University of Regensburg. Her main research interests include the cultural and social history of Southeastern Europe in the 19th and 20th century, especially history of medicine and psychiatry, social policy, postwar politics; conceptual history, history and knowledge; remembrance cultures in Eastern and Southeastern Europe; interdisciplinary trauma research; dealing with war crimes / Transitional Justice; nationalism and conflict in the former Yugoslavia.  

Heike Karge studied history, East and Southeast European Studies, and sociology at the universities of Leipzig and Zagreb. She holds a phD from the European University Institute Florence (2006) and a habilitation awarded by the University of Regensburg (venia legendi for History and Modern History of East and Southeastern Europe) (2018). In 2017 she was Invited Professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, in 2019/20 she was Interim Professor at Leipzig University, Chair for the History of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.  Among her recent publications are: Der Charme der Schizophrenie. Psychiatrie, Krieg und Gesellschaft im serbokroatischen Raum. Berlin: De Gruyter 2021; (together with Friederike Kind-Kovacs and Sara Bernasconi, eds.), From the Midwife’s Bag to the Patient’s File: Public Health in Eastern Europe. Budapest, New York: CEU Press 2017; Den Zweiten Weltkrieg erinnern: Der (post-)jugoslawische Raum, in: Südosteuropa Mitteilungen 8/2-3 (2021), 73-80; Psychiatrische Diagnostik und klinische Praxis im Ersten Weltkrieg, in: Timm Beichelt, Clara Maddalena Frysztacka, Claudia Weber, Susann Worschech, eds., Ambivalenzen der Europäisierung. Beiträge zur Neukonzeptualisierung der Geschichte und Gegenwart Europas. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2021, 239-251.  

Lilia Topouzova is an Assistant Professor of History and Creative Nonfiction at the University of Toronto. She is a scholar and a documentary filmmaker whose interdisciplinary work explores the relationship between remembering and forgetting. Her academic research appears in the American Historical Review, Gender & History, The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, Journal of Visual Literacy, and Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice. She is the writer of the critically acclaimed documentary film The Mosquito Problem & Other Stories, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and TIFF, and received more than twenty-five awards, including the Human Rights Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2007. Her other films include a feature-length documentary on immigration Saturnia (co-writer, co-director, co-producer, 2012), distributed by the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. She is currently in production of her third film, Anaanaga: My Mother.  Dr. Topouzova held fellowships at Brown University in the US, York University in Toronto, the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) at the University of Potsdam in Germany, and at the Center for Oral History and Digital Storytelling in Concordia University in Montreal. In 2022, she was a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in Sofia.

Description

This is an-person event in Seminar Room 108N, North House, Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario.

Jean-Marc Dreyfus is a Professor at the University of Manchester and associate researcher at the Centre of History, Sciences-Po Paris. He is a specialist of the economic and diplomatic aspects of the Holocaust and post-war reparations. His research considers other genocides, Jewish history in Europe and exhumations of corpses after mass violence. He also works and looted art in the Holocaust and the unfinished restitution process.  Jean-Marc Dreyfus’ current research is three folded. It considers the question of looted art in this Holocaust and its legacy; he is interested in the personal narrative and the microhistorical approaches of Holocaust victims; he considers the question of the ‘forensic turn’ in Holocaust studies, the ‘forensic turn’ being the studies of human remains’ treatment during and after the genocide, including their uses for commemorative purposes.

Sponsored by Centre for the Study of France and the Francophone World (CEFMF) and co-sponosred by Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.

Description

At the end of the 1920s, the Soviet Union started industrialization with no gold and currency reserves. The government feverishly sought gold to pay the tremendous foreign debts acquired to purchase equipment, materials, and technologies abroad. State-run stores called Torgsin (1930-36), which sold food and goods to the Soviet people at inflated prices in exchange for their heirlooms – foreign currency, gold, silver, and diamonds, became an important source of revenues to finance industrialization and the major strategy of survival for people during the mass famine of 1932-33.  

Elena A. Osokina is  Professor of Russian History at the University of South Carolina. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of History at Moscow University, Russia (1987).  She has authored 5 books published in Russian, English, Italian and Chinese, and numerous articles published in the major journals in Russia, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Finland, and Italy. More specifically her research focuses on the impact that the Soviet industrialization of the 1930s had on everyday life, social hierarchy, transformation of the economy, and the nature of Stalinism.  The most recent book came out in 2021 by Cornell UP Stalin’s Quest for Gold. Also available in English: Our Daily Bread: Socialist Distribution and the Art of Survival in Stalin’s Russia, 1927–1941 (2001). Elena Osokina received two book prizes: the Makariev book prize and the Prosvetitel’  book prize (both in 2019).  She is a recipient of the fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Kennan Institute-Woodrow Wilson Center, National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright, the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Hoover Institution Archives, Davis Center for Russian Studies (Harvard University), La Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris, France),  Aleksanteri Institute (Helsinki, Finland), and others.  Before coming to USC, Elena Osokina taught at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Oberlin College, and Missouri State University, and internationally at the Donaueschingen Academy (on the invitation of the Council of Europe) and Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (both in Germany).

Description

The secret US talks with the Taliban and the resulting “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan” aka the Doha Deal set the stage for Afghanistan’s dramatic collapse on August 15th of 2021. This agreement and the strategy the United States used to end this war will continue to be scrutinized for decades to come. Not long after this collapse, the Ukraine war began and US and NATO, who left Afghanistan due to ‘war fatigue’ engaged this new theatre with a renewed energy and sense of purpose.  Shoaib Rahim was a member of the government peace delegation for Afghanistan and spent the last two years of the republic preparing for the peace negotiations only to realize that deals and agreements had already been made on the government’s behalf by the powers that be. He will share with us his first-hand observations of the final months of the Republic, how he has grown to distrust externally driven political roadmaps and to try and draw certain parallels between Afghanistan and the on-going war in Ukraine.  

Shoaib Rahim is the former Senior Advisor to Afghanistan State Ministry for Peace, closely involved in the peace negotiations between the government and the Taliban. He also served in many public sector roles such as the Acting Mayor of Kabul and Senior Advisor to the Minister of Defense. He is a Duke University Alumni, a Fulbright Scholar, and a Visiting Scholar at The New School in New York.  An Associate Professor of Practice at the American University of Afghanistan’s Business Department, he has recently resettled in Toronto and is co-authoring a book on the collapse of Afghanistan’s National Defense and Security Forces despite two decades of international investment and the sacrifices made in blood and treasure.

Description

Using mostly unexplored archives from Albania, China, Italy, France, and Germany, as well as conducting interviews, the research explores the educational networks of Albania during the Cold War. This project proposal contends that studying these educational and academic exchanges would provide a more complete understanding of the communist regime of Albania during the 1960s and most of the 1970s when hundreds of economic and industrial projects were under construction with Chinese assistance. To compensate for the lack of an adequate specialized workforce, hundreds of Albanians were sent to Eastern and Western Europe, and China to pursue university studies. By tracing Albania’s educational networks during its communist period, this study aims to inscribe part of the history of Albania’s communist past into the broader context of the exchanges that took place between East European countries, as well as between them and the rest of the world in the field of education and expertise circulation during the central decades of the Cold War. The study is also aimed, among others, at revealing the limits of ideology driven economic models, its legacy in the country’s model that followed the fall of the communist system in Albania (path dependency), and the shortcomings of the centralized planning of human resources at national level under the communist regime. Furthermore, the research will also focus on the personal experiences of the students, which were strictly intertwined with the dynamics of the Cold War divisions, and were continuously conflicted between political loyalties and spaces of personal affirmation. In this way, this investigation poses issues of, among others, agency, political control and oppression, self-development, and creativity under the last Stalinist regime of Europe. Ultimately, the research contributes to the emerging scholarship focused on the agency of smaller countries of Eastern Europe and the transnational networks they create at the margin of the competition between major powers. Considering the recent events in Eastern Europe, historical studies have the potential of providing a better understanding of the area and provide the European Union with better tools to adopt adequate policies towards Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

Ylber Marku is Lecturer in History at Zhejiang University, China. He is a Cold War historian with research interests in Albania’s communist past, Tirana’s transnational networks during the communist period, the Global Cold War, Sino-Albanian Relations, East European History, and the Global South in the Sixties. Dr. Marku obtained his Ph.D. in History at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, in November 2017. Before his doctoral studies, he studied Political Science and Politics of the European Union at the University of Padua, Italy, and has lived in different European countries such as Spain, the Netherlands, and Greece. Dr. Marku has published research articles in leading journals in his field such as, among others, Cold War History, Journal of Cold War Studies, and The International History Review. He is currently working on several research articles and the completion of his first monograph.

Description

This event is taking place at the Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Seminar room 108, North House, Toronto, Ontario.

In 2015, the Sweden Democrats, a populist and anti-immigrant party, traveled to Lesbos to block the mobility of people fleeing war and seeking refuge further North. To explain these unconventional movements, we build on Du Boisian sociology to account for the structuring role of racialized violence at the border and to incorporate a more global perspective on far right scholarship. We argue that the far right’s repertoire of violence, including the hardviolence of white privilege, the soft violence of paternalism, and the extension of remote violence, infringe on the agency and self-determination of displaced people. Following Du Bois, we contend that this repertoire of violence is racially structured and racially motivated by factors rooted in domestic politics yet enacted in transnational space which enforces a global color line. We seek to extend sociological accounts of migration politics by taking seriously transnational social processes that cannot be contained within the nation-state and the effects of which are multi-scalar, individual, and collective.

Description

This event features a lecture by Luxembourg’s first female finance minister Ms. Yuriko Backes. As a member of the Eurogroup, which coordinates Euro area economic policies, and the influential Economic and Financial Council (ECOFIN), bringing together the economy and finance ministers of EU member states, Ms. Backes will provide first-hand insights into the European Union’s response to the key challenges of our time. These include a range of issues from the war in Ukraine and the related energy crisis to climate change and rising geopolitical tensions, all of which are fundamentally (re-)shaping the EU and its policies. As the finance minister of one of Europe’s largest financial centres, Ms. Backes will especially focus on the economic impact of today’s permacrisis and the role of the European Union in an emerging bipolar era.

About the Speaker

Yuriko Backes joined the coalition government between the Democratic Party (DP), the Luxembourg Socialist Workers Party (LSAP) and the Green Party (déi gréng) as Minister of Finance in January 2022. As a career diplomat, she held several high-level positions with Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including a post as the representative of the European Commission in Luxembourg.

Description

At the end of the 1920s and through the beginning of the 1930s, Stalin’s leadership sold art abroad by thousands of tons. Stalin’s art export became one of the extraordinary sources to finance Soviet industrialization. When the sale of ordinary antiques failed to satisfy the financial needs, the decision was made by Stalin’s Politburo to shift to the export of major museum masterpieces. The former Imperial Hermitage being the major Russian and world-famous depositary of the best examples of Western art had to suffer first and most. As a result of the unprecedented sale, the masterpieces from the Soviet Union found their way to private collections and world museums.   

Elena A. Osokina is Professor of Russian History at the University of South Carolina. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of History at Moscow University, Russia (1987). She has authored 5 books published in Russian, English, Italian and Chinese, and numerous articles published in the major journals in Russia, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Finland, and Italy. More specifically her research focuses on the impact that the Soviet industrialization of the 1930s had on everyday life, social hierarchy, transformation of the economy, and the nature of Stalinism. The most recent book came out in 2021 by Cornell UP Stalin’s Quest for Gold. Also available in English: Our Daily Bread: Socialist Distribution and the Art of Survival in Stalin’s Russia, 1927–1941 (2001). Elena Osokina received two book prizes: the Makariev book prize and the Prosvetitel’ book prize (both in 2019). She is a recipient of the fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Kennan Institute-Woodrow Wilson Center, National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright, the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Hoover Institution Archives, Davis Center for Russian Studies (Harvard University), La Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris, France), Aleksanteri Institute (Helsinki, Finland), and others. Before coming to USC, Elena Osokina taught at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Oberlin College, and Missouri State University, and internationally at the Donaueschingen Academy (on the invitation of the Council of Europe) and Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (both in Germany).

Description

Urban Ahlin is the Ambassador of Sweden to Canada, since February 2019. Prior to his appointment as Ambassador, Mr Ahlin was a member of Parliament, representing the Social Democratic Party. Following the 2014 parliamentary election Mr Ahlin was elected Speaker of the Swedish Parliament, Sveriges Riksdag.  

Urban Ahlin first became a member of Parliament in 1994. Mr Ahlin has since then worked in the field of foreign policy in various capacities including Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, member of the War Delegation and he is also a former member of the Swedish Defence Commission. Mr Ahlin also held the position of Foreign Policy Spokesperson for the Social Democratic Party and was a member of the party’s Executive Board. Furthermore, Mr Ahlin is one of the founding members of the first pan-European think-tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).  

Urban Ahlin is a teacher and graduated from the University of Karlstad with a Master of Science.

The four priorities of the Swedish Presidency of the EU:

Security- unity
Competitiveness
Green & energy transitions
Democratic values and the rule of law – our foundation

Security, competitiveness, green and energy transitions, democratic values and the rule of law. These are the priorities of the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2023.  

Sweden is assuming the Presidency of the Council of the European Union at a time of historic challenges for Member States and the Union as a whole. Russia’s illegal, unacceptable and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a threat to European security, with dire consequences for migration, as well as global food and energy supplies. Ukraine is fighting for its survival as a nation – and for the security and lives of its citizens. The EU and its Member States have rallied unprecedented support for Ukraine and will remain firmly by its side. Continued cooperation with trusted partners, including a strong transatlantic link, needs to be secured.  

European economies are severely affected by Russia’s war as well as the ongoing manipulation of energy supply. Rising inflation levels, interest rates and energy prices have left companies and citizens struggling. While decisive action has been taken, it is imperative that we stay firm in our transition to the green economy and safeguard the basis of our economic model for long-term growth.  

Our unity and readiness to act remain key to EU security, resilience and prosperity.

Description

When we talk about the future of the region, it should be remembered that on the one hand, the region consists of five different states that can have their own future based on internal and external factors. On the other hand, the war in Ukraine for Central Asia will have the same serious consequences as the collapse of the USSR, which led to the construction of a new system of international relations, a change in the geopolitical balance, the emergence of new risks and threats, as well as new opportunities.

And when we talk about the future of Central Asia, our region has six important tasks and challenges.  

1.     Building a new model of relations with Russia.  

2.     Building a new geopolitical balance.  

3.     The third important task, reducing the risk of secondary sanctions  

4.     The Fourth task, to not be drawn into any military conflict. Including within the region.  

5.     The Fifth task, the region should be "Too important to be threatened" and "Too important to be lost" for all major geopolitical players.  

6.     The Sixth task, make lemonade from lemon. Use the eight "windows of opportunity".

Dossym Satpayev, Director of Kazakhstan Risks Assessment Group, Board Member of Kazakhstan Council on International Relations, Board member of Kazakhstan Council on International Relations, political analyst at FORBES.KZ, and Co-Founder at the Alliance of Analytical organizations. Dr. Datpayev is a founder of Private Cultural and Educational Fund and Literary Project “Soyz”, and a co-founder of Kazakhstan literary award "Altyn Kalam." His monographs include “Deformation of the vertical in Kazakhstan. From anonymous empires to anti-lobbies”, Almaty, Kazakhstan Risks Assessment Group, 2019; "Rules of survival in conditions of urban terrorism", Almaty: Kazakhstan Risks Assessment Group, 2003; and "Political science in Kazakhstan. Prospects of discipline", Almaty: Kazakhstan Risks Assessment Group, 2002.

Sponsored by the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.

Description

Ian Garner will discuss his new book, Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat & Survival (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022), which combines historical research and literary translation to reveal the creation and afterlife of the Stalingrad story.

In the fall of 1942, with the fate of the USSR hanging in the balance, Soviet propaganda chiefs sent their finest writers—Vasily Grossman, Konstantin Simonov, and a host of others—to the Stalingrad front as newspaper correspondents. Exploring these authors’ experiences and work, and analyzing readers’ responses to their writing, Garner will explain why the idea of Stalingrad continues to play an integral role in Russian subjectivity and political culture today. As Vladimir Putin’s regime claims to wage war in Ukraine in defence of the memory of World War II, understanding the Stalingrad myth’s production and reception is crucial to our understanding of the present.  

Ian Garner’s research focuses on Soviet and Russian war propaganda. The author of Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat and Survival, he studied at the Universities of Bristol and Toronto, and at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory.