Norman Naimark to speak on ' Stalin, Europe and the Struggle for Sovereignty, 1944-1949: The Rebirth of a Continent '

on Monday, September 17, Norman Naimark, Professor of East European Studies at Stanford University, will give a talk on his forthcoming book 'Stalin, Europe and the Struggle for Sovereignty, 1944-1949: The Rebirth of a Continent' at the seminar of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences.

In this talk the post-war situation in Europe will be presented from three points of view. First —Stalin and his policies toward Europe. The second corner is comprised of the challenges, goals, and accomplishments of the Europeans themselves and of their politics after World War II.  The political development and reconstruction of postwar Europe as it confronted the power, prestige and influence of Stalin and the Soviet Union, will be discussed together with the shifting contours of Moscow’s policies and actions. Finally, in the third corner, there is the coming of the Cold War, the Soviet-American rivalry and the increasing mutual hostility between them that exacerbated it.

Most of the “action” in the book takes place at the center of the triangle, where these three factors – Stalin’s policies, European politics, and the coming of the Cold War intersect, influence once another, and to some extent merge, making it difficult to talk about one without the others. The book is comprised of seven somewhat idiosyncratic case studies, each a separate chapter, that illustrate the author’s major points. They are: 1) the Soviet occupation of Bornholm, 2) Gomulka and Stalin, 3) Finland versus Zhdanov, 4) Albania between Yugoslavia and the USSR, 5) The Italian Elections 1948, 6) The Berlin Blockade, 7) Austria.

About the author:

Norman M. Naimark is Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East  European Studies at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at Hoover Institution, the author of numerous books including The Russians in Germany (Harvard University Press, 1995), Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing (Harvard University Press, 2001), Stalin’s Genocides (Princeton University Press, 2010), and Genocide: A World History (Oxford University Press, 2017).

The seminar will take place on September 17 at 5 pm at 21/4 Staraya Basmannaya, room L-405.

If you need a pass to HSE, please contact worldwar2@hse.ru

The seminar will be held in English.