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Riccardo Cucciolla – Pursuing Postdoctoral Studies on the History of Soviet Uzbekistan

On November 1, Riccardo Cucciolla began a postdoctoral fellowship at the HSE International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences. During his year at HSE, he intends to pursue a research project that follows from his dissertation entitled ‘The Crisis of Soviet Power in Central Asia: The Uzbek Cotton Affair (1975–1991)’, which he wrote while completing a PhD in Political History at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca in Lucca, Italy.

Riccardo developed a keen interest in Soviet and Russian history at an early age when he sensed a passion for Russian studies while growing up in Rome. The role of World War II as the greatest trauma in recent Italian history, influencing the country’s collective memory and identity, played a significant role for him, as did his father’s role as an actor in a film on the era.

‘I was born with the mythical movie “Italiani Brava Gente” (“Attack and Retreat”), a 1964 Italian-Soviet movie known in Russia as “Они шли на Восток” where my father (Riccardo Cucciolla) played the role of Giuseppe Sanna, a pacifist and antifascist soldier. This movie and my father's character have deeply influenced me’, Riccardo says.

His interest in the Soviet world never waned. After completing an undergraduate degree in political science and a Master’s degree in international relations, he pursued doctoral research for four years in archives, libraries and research institutions in Russia, Uzbekistan, the U.S., and Europe, examining the ‘Uzbek affair’ from a broad historical perspective.                                                                                   

‘In 2014-2015, I spent long periods in Moscow, and I have very positively experienced the opportunity of working together with the team of scholars at HSE’, Riccardo says when asked about why he chose to accept an offer of a postdoctoral fellowship at HSE. ‘After my PhD, I wanted to join the International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences where I could propose a new project that grew organically from my existing research. Indeed, working in an international and stimulating intellectual environment such as HSE and being based in Moscow, where the main Soviet archives are, was the best opportunity I could imagine to continue my studies on the Soviet world’. 

In 2014-2015, I spent long periods in Moscow, and I have very positively experienced the opportunity of working together with the team of scholars at HSE

During his time at HSE, Riccardo intends to analyse the impact of the war economy on Uzbekistan in the period 1941–1966. Events that were all shaped in one way or another by developments in the 1941–66 period include the 1967 ‘general amnesty’ for many peoples convicted of ‘treason’ (excluding the Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks), the Pakhtakor incidents (1969), the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989), the ‘cotton affairs’ (1983–1989), the dramatic Ferghana pogroms (1989), the return of Russian settlers during the 1990s, and the redefinition of the Republic of Uzbekistan as a post-Soviet entity.

Riccardo has several goals he is pursuing in his research. The first is to understand Uzbekistan as a ‘home front’, defining its role within the Soviet war machine. The second is to analyse political relations between centre and periphery during wartime as well as the role of the war in legitimizing veterans and the post-revolutionary political elite in power during the post-war period. The third goal is to gain insight on the impact of war on the Uzbek economy and society, its role in spurring cotton monoculture and in defining a multi-ethnic society polarized in urban and rural frameworks. The fourth goal is to analyse the role of World War II memory in defining a common Soviet (and even post-Soviet) identity. His final goal is to analyse the social legacies of war and its consequences in a republic that effectively became a basis on which to read the whole Soviet history. 

I will push the limits of contemporary historiography forward and contribute to a scientific historical reconstruction of the post-war period based on primary sources and an analysis of historiography, political narrative and the use of memory

‘The significance of this project lies in the added value of a deep analysis of World War II in the Soviet periphery and filling the existing literature gap regarding the “home fronts”’, Riccardo says. ‘As I did in my PhD research, I will push the limits of contemporary historiography forward and contribute to a scientific historical reconstruction of the post-war period based on primary sources and an analysis of historiography, political narrative and the use of memory. In particular, I will strive to work with other fellows to formulate a research model suitable for other Soviet contexts, extending the theoretical and methodological bases for further research. I will also work to transform my PhD thesis – integrated with the new research carried out at HSE – into a monograph’.

Although he has spent long periods in Moscow during previous periods of study and research, Riccardo is looking forward to another year in the city.

‘I know how beautiful is to lose yourself in such a deep culture and crazy city that never sleeps’, he says. ‘I am expecting to spend beautiful moments with my colleagues, friends and family in a place that I feel to be home’.

Anna Chernyakhovskaya, specially for HSE News service

See also:

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A new exposition in the assembly hall of the HSE building on Staraya Basmannaya is dedicated to the events of August 1968: the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops. Here, you can see declassified documents from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union archives; leaflets and posters; amateur photos by railroad worker Josef Kut illustrating what was happening on the streets of Prague; and a ‘graphic diary’ by Czech artist Jiří Jirásek.

Communisation of Death

Mass graves became a reality of the first decades of Soviet Russia: victims of the revolution, famine, epidemics, political repression, the Civil War and World War II were often buried in common rather than individual graves. Over the centuries, Russians had regarded such practice as unusual and rarely acceptable. Soviet power needed to change popular mentality and give a new meaning to mass burials for both ideological and political reasons. Svetlana Malysheva studied this phenomenon.

Another Book About Stalin – But This One’s Different

On January 15, HSE welcomed Stephen Kotkin, Professor of History at Princeton University and Associated Senior Research Fellow at HSE’s International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences. Professor Kotkin spoke about his new book, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1919-1941 (New York, 2017) to an audience of students, staff, fellow researchers and members of the general public.

Looking Beyond the Usual Periodization of Soviet History

Alan Barenberg, Associate Professor in the Department of History at Texas Tech University, recently gave a presentation entitled ‘From the Margins to the Home Front: Vorkuta at War’ at a seminar held by the HSE International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences. In his presentation, he sought to provide insights not only about the role of forced labor in the USSR during the Second World War, but also regarding the relationship between the Gulag and Soviet society more broadly.

Professor Kenneth Pinnow:'These summer programmes are important for promoting global understanding and individual growth'

Kenneth Pinnow, Associate Professor of History from the University of Pittsburgh has been specializing in the history of Soviet Union and Russia for a nearly three decades. His current research interests are medical ethics and human experimentation in Russia and the USSR andearly Soviet criminology. He shared his impressions on the Summer School organized jointly with the Faculty of History of the HSE Saint-Petersburg Campus.

‘Russia’s Present Attracts Great Interest Now, and the Same Is True of Russia’s Past’

Yoshisada Shida, Research Associate at the Hitotsubashi University, Japan, will be one of the speakers at the XIV HSE April International Aca­demic Conference on Economic and Social Development. He gave a special interview for the HSE News Service.

Budnitskii O. Russian Jews between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012

In ‘Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920’ Oleg Budnitskii provides the first comprehensive historical account of the role of Jews in the Russian Civil War.