Summer School “Culture of Totalitarian Society and Memory Studies Cases” Starts at HSE-Perm

On August 20, 2019, an international Summer School on studying the culture of totalitarian society and memory studies cases started at HSE-Perm. It will continue until August 31.

The main purpose of the Summer School is to combine different points of view from various disciplines for studying totalitarian society and its images in late Soviet and post-Soviet culture and to familiarize participants with the reconstruction of past phenomena and the complex phenomena of modern historical memory.

The lecturers for this Summer School are researchers working in different humanitarian areas studying Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Among them are lecturers from HSE-Perm and HSE-Saint Petersburg, the State Archive of the Perm region, ‘Perm Memorial’ NGO, the University of Glasgow, Perm State Institute of Culture and the Free University Berlin.

The Summer School programme includes seminars, masterclasses, lectures and travelling seminars, which will take place at locations such as Perm archives, museums and memorial places, including the well-known museum of political repression, ‘Perm-36’.

Aleksandr Chashchukhin,
Associate Professor

‘There is a contradiction in the name of our Summer School. Usually the word ‘totalitarian’ is used when we talk about the state. We normally say, ‘a totalitarian state.’ In the title of our School we mention ‘totalitarian society.’ How is this possible?

We chose this provocative phrase on purpose. We aim to try and consider totalitarianism from different points of view. First of all – from the point of view of ‘common’ people: workers and kolkhozniks (collective farm workers), school teachers and low-level managers. It is this ‘worm's eye’ view that can unite such different topics as Soviet school and Soviet radio, clan rivalry and political campaigns.”

Dinara Gagarina,
Department Head

‘I think it is important that we are gathered here from different countries – Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Russia, we are all from different cities, we have different cultural and academic backgrounds, different ages, genders and political views. And I hope that this diversity will become an important starting point for the discussion of the problems of totalitarian society and memory.’

The Summer School will continue till August 31. Further information is available on the School’s website.