Europe, 1945: Liberation, Occupation, Retribution
Nineteen forty-five was a time for beginnings and settling scores. For some, the arrival of the Red Army meant freedom from German rule and new opportunities under Soviet rule. Others feared a new occupation and the costs of their actions under the German regime. The aftermath of occupation and often-vengeful liberation had long-ranging consequences, creating new power dynamics and animosities that reverberate in the memory of the war seventy years later. “1945” serves as a metaphor for the moment of liberation and the advent of the postwar order. In some territories not far west of Moscow, the end of German occupation and re-Sovietization came as early as 1942; in other areas, such as the Baltic region, armed conflict continued after 1945. But all areas experienced a common shift from the wartime order to the post-war world, and analyzing this transition is the conference’s main objective.
The conference will convene at Myasnitskaya street, 20, room 309 and 311.
We kindly ask our guests to order a pass to the building in advance at worldwar2@hse.ru
HSE students and staff should present their ID to enter the building.
Working languages are English and Russian (simultaneous translation will be provided).
Conference program
PROGRAM
TUESDAY, JUNE 2
9:30 AM - REGISTRATION (Foyer, 3rd floor)
10:00 AM - WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS (Room 311)
10:30 AM
PANEL 1: PERSPECTIVES ON 1945 (Room 311)
Moderator: Oleg Budnitskii
Professor, School of History, Director of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Lewis Siegelbaum
Jack and Margaret Sweet Professor of History, Michigan State University, USA
1945 in the Soviet Union: Regimes and Repertoires of Human Mobility
Sabine Dullin
Professor of Contemporary History, Sciences Po Paris, France
Landscapes of Uncertainty: Soviet-East European Political Encounters at the Borderlands, 1944-1945
Jan Gross
Professor of History, Princeton University, USA
Poland in 1945: Liberation or Second Occupation?
EgbertJahn
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Contemporary History, University of Mannheim, Germany
Was Germany Defeated or Liberated on the 8th/9 th of May 1945?
12:30 PM - LUNCH (Dining hall)
1:30 PM
PANEL 2: WORLD WAR II AND ITS IMPACT ON THE POSTWAR PERIOD
(Room 311)
Moderator: Nikolaus Katzer
Director, German Historical Institute Moscow
Stephen G. Wheatcroft
Professorial Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia
Food Problems and Demographic Movements, 1941-1947
Oleg V. Khlevniuk
Leading Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, Professor of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
The Soviet Political System: From the War to the Postwar Period
Tommaso Piffer,
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
The Soviet Union, the European Communist Movement and the Origins of Postwar Europe, 1943-1945
3:00 PM - COFFEE BREAK (Room 300)
3:30 PM
PANEL 3: THE PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCE OF LIBERATION (Room 311)
Moderator: Michael David-Fox
Professor of Russian History, Georgetown University
Scholarly Advisor, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Oleg Budnitskii
Professor, School of History, Director of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
The Red Army Encounters Europe, 1944-1945
Petra Bopp
Research fellow, Institute of Art History, Free University Berlin, Germany
Camera Sights: German and Russian Soldiers’ Views of Occupation, Captivity and Liberation in Soviet Territories and Berlin in 1941-1948
Elke Scherstjanoi
Research Fellow, Institute of Contemporary History Munich – Berlin, Germany
Perceptions of Germans by the Red Army Combatants in Germany, 1945
5:00 PM - COFFEE BREAK (Room 300)
5:30 PM
PANEL 4: DEMOBILIZATION, RE-EVACUATION AND POSTWAR DISCONTENTS (Room 311)
Moderator: Aleksandr Kamenskii
Dean, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Filip Slaveski
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia
Fighting Stalinism from Within: Red Army Raids on Party Pre-Election Meetings and Troop Violence across the Postwar Soviet Space, 1945-1946.
Joanna Wawrzyniak
Deputy Head for Student Affairs, Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, Poland
Veterans and the Politics of World War II in Communist Poland
Elena Rozhdestvenskaya
Professor, School of Sociology, NRU HSE
Problems and Strategies of Integration of the Former “Ostarbeiters” in the Soviet Society
7:15 PM - RECEPTION (Room 300)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3 (parallel sessions)
10:00 AM
PANEL 5: THE LIBERATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA (Room 311)
Moderator: Alain Blum
Research Fellow, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France, and Franco-Russian Research Center, Moscow
Martin Beisswenger
Assistant Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Prague, 1945: Russian Émigré Intellectuals Meet the Red Army
Artem Zorin
Associate Professor in Global History, Vyatka State University of Humanities, Kirov
Soviet and American Troops in the Liberated Czechoslovakia: Experience in Interaction and Mutual Perception
Rachel Applebaum
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities, Tufts University, USA
War as Cultural Diplomacy: The Legacy of the Red Army’s Liberation of Czechoslovakia and the Construction of the Eastern Bloc
10:00 AM
PANEL 6: SOVIET OCCUPATION AND RECKONING: INSTITUTIONALIZED AND SPONTANEOUS VIOLENCE (Room 309)
Moderator: Emilia Koustova
Associate Professor of Russian Studies, Department of Slavonic Studies, Strasbourg University, France
Andreas Weigelt
Independent Scholar, Germany
Death Sentences by Soviet Military Tribunals against Germans, 1944-1947
Vera Dubina
Associate Professor of History, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences,
Project Coordinator in History and Civil Society, Moscow
“A Common Story”: Memory on Sexual Violence during Military Occupation in World War II
Franziska Exeler
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
What Did You Do During the War? Personal Reckonings in the Aftermath of Nazi Occupation
11:30 AM - COFFEE BREAK (Room 300)
12:00 NOON
PANEL 7: JEWISH EXPERIENCES OF LIBERATION (Room 311)
Moderator: Oleg Khlevniuk
Leading Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, Professor of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Daniel Newman
Program Director of the Initiative for the Study of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, USA
Soviet Jewish POWs during and after the Holocaust
Anika Walke
Assistant Professor, Department of History, Washington University in St. Louis, USA
Between Liberation, Longing, and Loss: Jewish Youth after the Holocaust in Belorussia
Elana Jakel
Program Director of the Initiative for the Study of Ukrainian Jewry, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, USA
Soviet Jewish Experiences of Liberation in Ukraine
12:00 NOON
PANEL 8: WORLD WAR II IN POSTWAR CULTURE (Room 309)
Moderator: Valérie Pozner
Research Fellow, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Vanessa Voisin
Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the Project «CINESOV 1939-1949», French National Research Agency, Paris, France
Retribution on the Soviet Screen
Ilya Kukulin
Associate Professor, School of Cultural Studies, Senior Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
The Victors with the Self-Perception of the Vanquished: Poetic Interpretations of the Postwar Attitudes in Soviet Society by Georgii Obolduev and Boris Chichibabin, 1945-1947
Mischa Gabowitsch
Academic Fellow, Einstein Forum, Potsdam, Germany
The First Memorials: Monuments to Red Army Soldiers in Transnational Perspective, 1939-1953
1:30 PM – LUNCH (Dining hall)
2:30 PM
PANEL 9: RESISTANCE AND COLLABORATION IN THE OCCUPIED REGIONS OF THE SOVIET UNION (Room 311)
Moderator: Masha Cerovic
Deputy Director, Franco-Russian Research Center, Moscow
Boris Kovalev
Leading Research Fellow, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg
Kind and Evil Invaders: Local Population’s Contacts with Germans and Their Allies in Russia’s North-Western Region
Nathalie Moine
Research Fellow, National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Soviet Doctors Facing Liberation: Eyewitnesses, Experts and Collaborators
Vladimir Solonari
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Central Florida, USA
Traitors into Heroes: Towards a History of “Partisan Glory” in Odessa Region of Ukraine
2:30 PM
PANEL 10: RESOVIETIZATION OF THE BALTIC REGION (Room 309)
Moderator: Irina Savelieva
Professor, School of History, Director of Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, NRU HSE, Moscow
Rüdiger Ritter
Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute for East-European Studies, Free University, Berlin, Germany
Liberation or Reoccupation? Lithuania in 1944-1950 from the Perspective of Recent Research
Ilze Jermacāne
Project Coordinator and Researcher, Baltic Center for Strategic Studies, Latvian Academy of Sciences, Riga
Red Army in Latvia in 1944-1945 from the Perspective of Oral History
Kaspars Zellis
Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia, Riga
War after the War: Postwar Anti-Soviet Resistance in Latvian Historiography and Social Memory
4:00 PM - COFFEE BREAK (Room 300)
4:30 PM
PANEL 11: THE PRACTICES OF SOVIET OCCUPATION: MATERIAL ASPECTS (Room 311)
Moderator: Kristy Ironside
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Brandon Schechter
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley, USA
The Red Army Confronts an Alien World of Goods
Irina Tazhidinova
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Kuban State University, Krasnodar
“Trophy fever” in Accounts of Soviet Combatants
Kornelia Kończal
Doctoral Student, Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
“The Land Is Yours – the Trophies Are Ours”: The Soviet Plundering of German Property in Post-War Central Europe
Sophie Coeuré
Professor of Contemporary History, University Paris 7 Denis Diderot, France
Who Is the Plunderer, Who Is the Ally? In Quest of Looted Cultural Properties in Eastern Europe, 1945-1949
THURSDAY, JUNE 4 (parallel sessions)
10:00 AM
PANEL 12: POLAND’S TRANSITION FROM WAR TO PEACE (Room 311)
Moderator: Jan Gross
Professor of History, Princeton University
Jadwiga Biskupska
Assistant Professor, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, USA
The Nazi Anti-Intelligentsia Campaign in Warsaw and Its Aftermath, 1939-1945
Kerstin Bischl
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
No Peace after the End of War: Poland in 1944-1946
Tarik Cyril Amar,
Assistant Professor, Department of History, Columbia University, USA
“Stakes Greater than Life”: Representations of World War II, Occupation, and “Liberation” in Communist Poland’s Most Successful TV Series
10:00 AM
PANEL 13: CONFLICTING PERSPECTIVES ON THE WAR AND SOVIET VICTORY (Room 309)
Moderator: Liudmila Novikova
Deputy Director of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, Associate Professor, School of History, NRU HSE, Moscow
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann
Associate Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Berlin Encounters: 1945 through Diaries
Irina Alter
Fellow Editor for the Project “Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon” at Walter de Gruyter Verlag, Berlin, Germany
Dresden, 1945: Ragna Enking and Leionid Rabinovich (Two Witness Accounts)
Liubov Summ
Translator, Literary Scholar, Moscow
Hitler’s Death: Accounts by Elena Rzhevskaia and Kete Hoiserman
11:30 AM - COFFEE BREAK (Room 300)
12:00 NOON
PANEL 14: BETWEEN THE HOLOCAUST AND POGROM: SOVIET JEWISH
CULTURE, 1945-1948 (Room 311)
Moderator: Maria Maiofis
Associate Professor and Research Fellow, School for Humanities Research, Russian State Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow
Mikhail Krutikov
Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Between Tragedy and Hope: Renaissance of Soviet Yiddish Literature, 1945-1948
Anna Shternshis
Al and Malka Green Associate Professor in Yiddish Studies, University of Toronto, Canada
“Mir shisn di fashistn”: Soviet Yiddish Songs of Love, Collaboration and Resistance, 1943 – 1947
Valérie Pozner
Research Fellow, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Oswiecim and the Film “Osventsim”: What Could and Should Not Soviet Citizens Know about the Holocaust in 1945
12:00 NOON
PANEL 15: CAPTIVITY AND REPATRIATION (Room 309)
Moderator: Sergei Kudryashov
Research Fellow, German Historical Institute in Moscow
Dietrich Beyrau
Professor Emeritus of East European History, University of Tübingen, Germany
Surviving Military Defeat and Moral Disaster: German POWs in the Soviet Union
Seth Bernstein
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Return to the Motherland: Soviet Repatriation in 1945
Artem Latyshev
Graduate Student, Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University
NKVD-MVS Filtration Camps: Structures and Political Practices, 1945-1949
1:30 PM - LUNCH (Dining hall)
2:30 PM
PODIUM DISCUSSION: NINETEEN FORTY-FIVE AND ITS AFTERMATH:
A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE (Room 311)
Moderator: Vera Dubina
Associate Professor of History, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Project Coordinator in History and Civil Society, Moscow, Russia
Dietrich Beyrau
Professor Emeritus of East European History, University of Tübingen, Germany
Oleg Budnitskii
Professor, School of History, Director of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Michael David-Fox
Professor of Russian History, Georgetown University, USA,
Scholarly Advisor, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, NRU HSE, Moscow
Egbert Jahn
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Contemporary History, University of Mannheim, Germany